


The Straw-Hat Among Us

by FriendlyFrat_Boy



Category: Among Us (Video Game), One Piece
Genre: Alien Impostor(s) (Among Us), Also no Luffy isn't in this the title just made sense this way, Alternate Universe - Among Us (Video Game) Setting, Alternate Universe - Everyone Dies, And no they aren't playing they are actually in the setting lel, Competent Buggy (One Piece), Cowardly Usopp, Donquixote Doflamingo Being an Asshole, Gen, High Kizaru, I am on crack, Murder, Murder Mystery, Polus (Among Us), Sorry to all you Marco lovers, Video Game: Among Us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26629768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FriendlyFrat_Boy/pseuds/FriendlyFrat_Boy
Summary: There were two imposters among the ten of them. If they wished to survive, they had to find these two, and kill them. If they didn't, they might not make it home.Starring Usopp as an orange botanist, Zoro as a green electrician, Buggy as a blue O2 manager, Kizaru as a yellow security guard, Teach as a black seismic expert, Marco as a cyan leader, Caesar as a purple scientist, Doflamingo as a pink doctor, Smoker as a white ventilation repairman, and Shanks as a red pilot.Have you ever wanted to see all of these guys in a single room, actually interacting with each other? Talking and dying and everything? Then, this is the fic for you! There will be ten chapters in total, each focusing on a character that, by the end of said chapter, croaks! Dies! Whether it be by murder or democratic voting, the chapter's namesake will undoubtedly die. Don't worry though, there's plenty of characters to go around!Not that they'll live for long. Anyhoo, have a read! If you think you know who the imposters are, comment it!Hope you'll enjoy it!
Comments: 40
Kudos: 29





	1. Cyan, Marco the Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! More chapters to come, but... Yeah! Every chapter will be told from a character's perspective, and today's perspective is Marco's! 
> 
> so yeah rip marco

There was an imposter among them.

Two, to be precise. Marco didn’t know who they were, but he knew they were among them. And, as Chief of this expedition, it was his duty to inform his comrades that they weren’t alone any longer. Hence, he headed to the meeting room, situated just above the Admin room, flicked off the clear plastic protection and pressed the large red button.

Five minutes later, and all members of the Polus Expedition had gathered. Marco had never seen their faces, didn’t know their names, and that was all according to protocol.

Having their lives threatened by a pair of imposters was not. 

Marco pressed a few buttons on the side of his cyan helmet and popped the whole thing off, revealing his yellow hair and tired face. The collected members all swayed, casting anxious glances at each other. After all, their Chief had just broken protocol and revealed his face. “-I am aware that I am committing a grave sin, likewise, I have a grave reason for doing so.” Marco let his eyes bore into the assorted members. “We have two imposters among us. Two inhuman threats masquerading as our very own crewmates.”

The rather short person in the orange suit, known only as “Orange” shivered and swayed at the accusation. Marco chose to ignore it. 

“-My name is Marco, and I am the Chief of this Exploration.” He turned to the man beside him, a large fellow in a black suit. “Go on, Black.”

The man shook his head, but quickly relented, popping the circular helmet off. He had a broad, stubbled face, tanned and shabby with curly hair that matted to his forehead. “-’Name’s Teach. Marshall D. Teach. I work with stabalizin’ the seismic activity ‘round here.” Teach crossed his arms, the rubbery fabric squishing together. “Now, mind tellin’ me what the Hell you’re on about?”

Marco did not, in fact, tell Teach what the Hell he was on about. He met the eyes of Yellow, and nodded for him to reveal himself as well. He did so without the slightest fuzz.

“Ohh, uhhhh, hi! Nice to meet youuuuu, I’m Borsalino but all my friends call me Kizaruuu~” he said in the most drawling voice that Marco had ever heard. With a lazy grin on his face and a pair of squinted eyes, Kizaru gave off the impression that he was not quite a man to be trusted, neither was he entirely suspicious. More of the high sort. “Oh, and, uhh, I work in the Securityyyy.”

White had already removed his helmet before Marco even looked at him. “The name’s Smoker. I’m the one making sure we can go without our helmets inside the facility.” In other words, he worked in ventilation. Before Marco called for this meeting, he actually went ahead and told White about this, telling him to make sure the air inside was absolutely breathable. Though, that didn’t quite explain why he was smoking two cigars. Inside his helmet. 

Purple squirmed a bit under Marco’s stern gaze before reluctantly revealing his face. “I don’t trust any of this! You haven’t even told us what’s going on!” 

Sure, Marco could easily argue that he had, in fact, explained the situation, but it was still far from clear. Not that he truly understood the situation himself. So, Marco surveyed Purple. His hair was long and black, standing in complete contrast to his ghastly skin. If it wasn’t for his oddly-coloured purple lipstick, one might assume he was already in rigor mortis. 

“Alright. As odd as it may seem, we do actually have protocol for this situation, as it has happened once before. The survivors reported that the imposters, which could be any one of us, are looking to end us from within, whether it be through deception or murder. Our only option for getting rid of these and surviving is to find the two imposters and kill them before they kill us. Therefore, we require great honesty, courage and rationality. We will not be suspecting each other without basis, and assuming someone is an imposter on account of lackluster evidence will only divide us further.”

“What’s the protocol, exactly?” Smoker asked.

Marco scratched his head. “There isn’t much. Stick together, but continue with your tasks. Make sure to keep an eye on your fellow crewmates, whether it be for their protection or your own. If you find a body, which you very well might, report it and we will all meet here to discuss the leads or see if anybody witnessed anything.” He turned back to Purple. “Now, name and occupation?”

Purple huffed. “Caesar Clown. Scientist.” Marco nodded, happy with the answer. Next one…

Pink removed his helmet, revealing a wide grin and a pair of sunglasses. How he’d been able to see in this darkness with those glasses only the Czar may know. “Imposters, eh? Interesting! Finally something happens!” After giving a cackle, Pink continued. “Donquixote Doflamingo. I’m the doctor aboard, of the medical sort!”

With that said, Doflamingo slapped Caesar’s back endearingly, and Marco could only assume it was a scientist thing. People like that were weird. 

Next up… “Hold on, there can’t be TWO clowns!” As it turns out, Blue was also quite… clown-like, if that nose was anything to go by. 

Caesar sputtered. “I-, I’m not a REAL clown! Unlike you, you big-nosed freak!”

“WHAT’S THAT YOU SHEEP-HORNED BASTARD!?”

“Hey, cool it! Don’t get in a twist already!” Marco said, stepping between the feuding pair. He looked the red-nosed clown up and down. “...And you are?”

“Buggy!” he said proudly. “Buggy D. Clown! I work in O2!”

Caesar’s eyes went wide. “B-, brother?...”

“No way, jerk!” Buggy said, bearing his fist threateningly. “I’d never be associated with a sheep-horned know-it-all like you!”

While those two went at each other, Red removed his helmet in turn. “I’m Shanks.” He smiled idly. “I’m the one who flew you all out here, and if I can get the Shuttle up and working again, I’ll gladly get you out of here as well.” Somehow, Marco could already trust he was a good fellow. There were only two more, namely Green and Orange. 

Green had barely reacted to any of this, simply standing there with his arms crossed, so when he removed his helmet and revealed a tired, uncaring expression, Marco couldn’t honestly say he was any surprised. “Roronoa Zoro. Electrician.” His eyes were already suspicious, even though not a single person had done anything at this point. “And I don’t trust a single one of you.” Ah, there it is. 

“N-, not even me?! Zoro, aren’t we buddies?” Orange mewled. Zoro took one look at him, taking in his round, innocent eyes, curly black hair, long nose…

“Oh! Usopp!” Zoro exclaimed, a smile overtaking his features before vanishing as soon as it appeared. “...No, I don’t trust you, either.” He frowned before glancing away. “If I can’t trust one of you, I can’t trust any of you. Sorry, Usopp.”

Orange, or Usopp, as his name apparently was, stuttered for a few moments, betrayed. “I-, um, uh…” Everybody was looking at him. “-Oh! I’m, well, I’m Usopp! I’m the botanist, even though there’s only one tree to tend to…” His anxious eyes glanced over the people collected, finally landing on Marco himself. “Uh-, um, Cyan-, no, Chief, can I have someone to go with? Just-, just for protection!”

Marco nodded. “Of course. Is there anyone else headed to the West Wing?” Two people, Kizaru and Buggy both raised their hands. “Great. You three will keep together. I assume the rest of you will return to your posts. I will wander about, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.” There was a moment of tense silence. “Don’t worry,” Marco smiled slightly, “we’ll get through this, as long as we work together.”

And with that, the meeting ended. 

Marco, along with Kizaru, Buggy, Usopp and Zoro went to the West Wing. Apparently, Zoro had some brief business there, what with the wires. Once they got inside, Kizaru quickly went to the security cameras, and Marco followed Buggy and Usopp to O2. 

Marco watched them get settled down, Usopp tending to the tree while Buggy worked on other things in O2. “Y’know, this is a real special tree. It’s actually not a tree at all, but an oversized Special Bonsai. What? You haven’t heard of the Special Bonsais? Well, they’re these tiny trees that have been modified to absorb as much carbon dioxide as a regular sized tree. And this one has been specially grown to be big enough to both produce enough oxygen for the whole crew and-” 

-And that’s where Marco stopped listening to Usopp rambling about trees. While leaving, in the company of Zoro (who had finished his work in West Wing by now), Marco found Teach squatting in the snow just outside. 

“-Everything alright there, Teach?” Marco asked, fearlessly stepping closer to him. 

The large man jerked at the sudden addressal, hopping up to stand on his both feet. “Oh! Um, nothing much, Chief. Just, um…” 

And then Marco noticed the little snowman Teach had made in the snow. “...Got nothing to do?”

Teach scratched his neck. “Well, not really, but… it isn’t important! Bye!” 

With that, Teach ran off into the dark. Marco put to mind that Teach ran towards the Central Building, but that shouldn’t matter much. It was a pretty cute snowman, but if he had work to do, he really should be working on it. 

Zoro crossed his arms. “-I don’t trust him.”

Marco perked an eyebrow. “You don’t trust anybody.”

“Yeah, but…” Zoro gave Marco a look. “You really don’t think that wasn’t suspicious?”

Marco shrugged. “Not really, but I think I can see where you’re coming from.”

With that said and done, they headed for the Central Building, making sure to check inside the Storage just in case there was somebody there. It had been Zoro’s idea and Marco didn’t object to it. Before they got to the Central Building, however, Marco remembered a certain somebody who should be in a certain place. 

“Let’s head to the Shuttle.” 

Zoro nodded, not questioning it in the least. He seemed like a clever enough fellow, although a bit too cautious for his own good. 

Inside the Shuttle, they did actually find Shanks! Marco had almost expected him to be gone, but he was happy to see him, knowing he was clever enough. “Oh, hello there, Marco!” Shanks said with a grin, not afraid in the least. If Zoro was too cautious, Shanks might almost seem too lax. However, Marco could tell that he was anything but. Underneath that idle grin, a shark prowled.

“Everything going alright?” Marco asked, to which Shanks nodded. 

“Certainly so! Why, Teach went by just the other minute, asked me the very same thing. A most agreeable fellow, wouldn’t you say?”

Before Zoro could say something rash, Marco answered in his place. “Oh, agreed. You should see the little snowman he made, absolutely adorable.”

Shanks nodded, and promised to check it out if he had the time. With that done, Zoro and Marco left once more and entered the East Wing through the Laboratory. The second they stepped inside, they heard something… interesting.

“I’m TELLING YOU, the smoke is bad for the ventilation! How can you possibly be a smoker WHILE WORKING WITH VENTILATION??” Caesar screeched at someone Marco could only assume was Smoker. Not that Caesar wasn’t correct about smoke being bad for the ventilation, but Smoker was in charge of it, not him. 

“Hey, the worse the lungs, the better the insurance!” Doflamingo added unhelpfully. 

Smoker gruffed. “It’s fine. I don’t got nobody to take out my insurance.”

Caesar huffed, something he seemed prone to doing. “FINE! Sure! Just fix it, okay? I need to boil these samples properly, and your disgusting smoke isn’t helping!” 

This was the moment when Marco and Zoro entered the main part of the Laboratory, the one connected to the little Medbay and furthermore to the Disinfection area. “Everything alright?” Marco asked, taking in the scene. The people present were indeed Caesar, Smoker and Doflamingo, all standing around. 

Doflamingo smiled. “Sure, sure, everything is perfectly alright! Nothing to see here. That is, unless Smokey here fixes things like he should.” 

Smoker shrugged, heaving a toolbox on top of the counter covered in samples and liquids and things. “Let’s take a look here.” Caesar seemed just about ready to shout something at him for putting something dirty on top of the sanitized countertop, but he chose to keep silent. At least, that’s how Marco understood it. 

A few minutes later and the ventilation worked properly, allowing Caesar to do whatever it is he was supposed to do. Marco nodded, and prepared to leave for the outside. He kind of wanted to find Teach again, since being out and about like that couldn’t possibly be safe, not for him, not for anything. “I’ll be leaving to find Teach, is everything going to be alright here?”

“I’ve got some wires to fix in the stalls,” Zoro reported, the unsaid message being that he wouldn’t be able to follow him. 

Marco smiled softly. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. And the rest of you?”

Doflamingo and Caesar shared a glance. ““We’ll be in here.””

“I’m heading to the Sample room, I noticed the southern Disinfection seemed ineffective,” Smoker said.

Marco nodded, and left, striding into the dark outside with little fear. Snow littered the ground, falling in large tufts like frozen cotton. Although it was sub-zero, Marco’s suit easily protected him, keeping him warm and breathing and alive. 

Darkness. Cold, silent darkness. Buildings loomed just out of sight, hidden by the falling snow. 

The already fallen snow crunched under his feet, leaving little footprints in his wake. It felt hard to keep an eye open, even though his helmet defended him from the outside. Maybe walking out alone had been a bad idea? No, he’d be fine. The only one out and about other than himself should be Teach, and as long as Teach wasn’t it, he should be okay.

The shadows lurched. Marco crept around buildings, keeping himself out in the colds. After a while, almost too long, he finally found something.

A little snowman. 

Along with a pair of almost-covered footprints. It seemed the falling snow had been covering them up, but… here they were.

Marco followed the footsteps, letting them lead him towards wherever their owner was, through and around and beside buildings, growing weaker the closer he came, fainter with every step he took, his pace quickened, growing faster and faster until he broke out into a sprint, desperate to know where Teach was, desperate to know he was alright, seeing an empty shadow of his black suit around every corner until, finally…

He stood by the pool of lava. His chest heaved. It was warm. So, so, very warm. It penetrated his suit. It was made for keeping heat in. Not out. If he fell in…

He swallowed. 

It was okay, Teach was surely around here somewhere. 

Marco glanced about, but he couldn’t even turn around before an arm clasped around his neck and a knife plunged into his chest. 

The darkness took him.


	2. Red, Shanks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Treehouse, I think you might find this chapter interesting.

Something was up. He was coming along alright on the Shuttle, but… 

Marco hadn’t come by for a second round. Zoro had been by a while ago to fix up some wiring, and that was the last time Shanks had seen anyone. He could probably continue working for a good while longer, but something told him that something had happened. 

Something bad. 

Right. Before Shanks left, he scribbled a little note for himself to know where he left off, and then he was off. He could probably have gone into the darkness immediately, but that was just not something he wanted to try. Instead, he went into the West Wing. A quick look into the CCTV room ensured that Kizaru was indeed still there, lazily flipping through the different cameras. 

“Oh hiiiii Shanks, what’s uuuuuup?” he asked without even turning around, and Shanks recalled noticing a camera above the entrance. Effective. 

“I’m looking for Marco, have you seen him?”

“The chieeeef?” Kizaru drawled out, tapping his chin with a thoughtful expression. “Nnnnnot in a while? Last I saw, he headed past Northeaaast.” Kizaru quickly hopped through the cameras, finally settling on one showing the northern entrance to the Laboratory. Nobody was there or anything, but tracks in the snow showed that somebody had been there alright.

“Thank you. Keep an eye on me while I head there,” Shanks said, already heading towards O2 to seek up an old friend.

Kizaru watched him leave, finally slurring out a “okayyyyyy, I’ll watch your back, Shaaanks.”

Shanks smiled. He’d better. 

“So, what you’re trying to say is, the kind of water you use actually matters? How the hell can the plant tell?? It’s braindead!” someone all-too-familiar to Shanks said. 

“Well, um, it’s not like they can actually tell, they just kinda absorb whatever they get? And if they die, it makes me sad,” someone Shanks could only assume was Usopp replied. The young boy, young compared to the rest of them that is, was apparently telling Buggy about how to raise trees. “Furthermore, while they don’t have a brain like we do, they certainly do have-, ACK!!”

Upon noticing Shanks, Usopp jumped three feet into the air, proceeded to throw himself at Buggy and clung around the older man like a little kid around their father. 

While Usopp whimpered, Buggy’s eyes widened in recognition. “Shanks!”

Shanks smiled. “The one and only, Buggy!”

“You… you’ll follow me to Hell and back, won’t you?!” Just as Shanks was about to respond, Buggy noticed Usopp clinging to him like gum to the bottom of desks. “You-, GET OFF OF ME, KID!” Hence, Usopp was unceremoniously cast off, whining both at the rough treatment and his own fear.

Shanks, however, had very little time to waste. “Buggy, I need your help. You’re the only guy I trust around here.”

Buggy blushed. “I-, you, you trust me?? I don’t trust you, why the hell would you-”

“It’s unimportant, I just need your help to find Marco.”

“Huh? The Chief? What for, is he dead or something?” Buggy asked while Usopp nervously got up on two feet. “I mean, sure, I’ll come along or whatever, but is there some reason?”

Shanks shrugged. “I just haven’t seen him in a while.” For some reason, Shanks caught Usopp’s gaze. “-If you’re afraid of being alone, you can come along as well.” Shanks scoffed. “Though we really shouldn’t be bringing any wimps, hah!”

Usopp growled. “Hey, I’ve got every right to be afraid! There’s murdery killers out there! Probably!” He was right, but Shanks still couldn’t help but find his cowardice somewhat endearing. 

“Alright, alright. Let’s get going, fellows,” Shanks said. Usopp and Buggy shared a glance, and followed him. 

The wind seemed to have picked up somewhat since Shanks left the Shuttle, seeing as how it was almost harsh enough to pick the young Usopp right off of his feet. Then again, Buggy seemed quite watchful of him, enough to place a grounding hand on his shoulder whenever the wind swept him off his feet, so Shanks didn’t think there was anything to worry about. They quickly rounded around the Main Building, made sure to wave at Kizaru once they got to the cameras, and continued their trek. 

The lavapool stood out like a wolf among sheep, bubbling and churning with acidic magma. Beside it, a large figure sat hunched, back to them. It was hard to see in the darkness, but considering there was barely an outline of him apart from the white snow that had collected upon his shoulders, Shanks could only assume that it was Teach. “Hey, Teach! Everything alri-,”

Teach turned around. In the dim light, Shanks could barely make out the wetness on his cheeks. But what he did make out, in all-too-clear detail, was the body of Marco. 

“GAAAAHH!!” Usopp screamed, falling back into the snow. “Wh-, what-, he’s DEAD!!”

Teach stammered for a moment, his wide, panicked eyes darting between the body he was cradling and his witnesses. “N-, no! I didn’t!”

Shanks stepped closer, his eyes burrowing into Teach’s. “Step away from the body, Teach.”

“N-, no, I-”

“Step. Away,” Shanks hissed through gritted teeth, trying his damned hardest not to throw himself at the larger man. 

Teach’s jaw snapped shut and he slowly loosened his grip on the body, letting it fall into the blood-soaked snow. Oddly enough, Shanks could notice that although the ground was thoroughly soaked with blood, snowy white roses painted red, Teach didn’t have a drop on him. The body wasn’t bleeding either. 

Slowly, Teach rose to his feet, legs shaking as he attempted to steady himself against a rocky stalagmite. While he did that, Shanks stepped up to the body. 

The snow around his body was almost entirely unmoved, with all tracks apart from theirs and Teach’s already being covered up by the snow. Even then, The killing wound, a stab-wound to the chest, was clean and almost professional. Only the part actually stabbed was harmed, meaning that Marco couldn’t have struggled much before his departure. The murder-weapon was nowehere to be found. 

Teach sniffled, and Shanks realized that they had things to do apart from analyzing the body. He reached over to the side of the head, found the button signifying the death of the crewmate, and pressed it three times, twice in quick succession and once a beat after. 

From the way Usopp stumbled back, part of his helmet visor flashing red, Shanks knew the message had been sent out. 

With that, he headed inside the Office, noting how the blinking red light on the security cameras went out as Kizaru left them. Usopp, Buggy and Teach all trailed behind him. There was something abnormally heavy about the way Teach walked, his spirit seemingly so broken that his body could barely house it properly. Once they got to the Office, they found Smoker and Zoro already there, waiting impatiently for the rest of the group to join. 

“What happened?” Smoker asked, letting his gaze fall on the black sheep of the group, namely Teach. “Is he… crying?...”

“N-, no!” Teach quickly swiped at his eyes, “I’m not! And even if I was, is it so wrong for a man to mourn his brother?!”

Silence passed through the group. Smoker’s eyes widened, but Shanks didn’t let him say anything. “Hold on, let’s leave discussion for once everyone arrives.”

The door opened. “Aaaaaahh, am I laaate?” Kizaru smiled sheepishly as he scratched his head. Upon seeing Shanks, his smile widened a little bit. “I saw you waaaaving, it was pretty nice of youuu~” he said happily, giving a little wave to demonstrate the occasion. Shanks returned the wave, even though the situation was hardly right for it. 

Within only a minute or so Caesar and Doflamingo arrived, but Shanks could hear them coming from miles, chattering like a pair of cockatrices. It mostly seemed to be Doflamingo barrating Caesar for some minor mishap, with the scientist growing disproportionately offended with each tease, his defences growing weaker as well. “-I’m telling you, it was all that no-good Smoker’s fault! If his poor ventilation hadn’t set me back, I’d-”

“You’d be done by now, sure. And I’m the queen of Spain!”

Caesar scowled unhappily. “-You’re not royalty in the least, a crown figure would surely have more tact than you!”

“Everyone, please take a seat,” Shanks said, cutting off Caesar before he could say anything further.

“Hey, I was-,” the second Caesar saw what kind of atmosphere lingered in the office, he shut up, and sat down. Doflamingo followed along, snickering at the livid scientist. After a few moments, everybody was seated, staring expectantly at the only one who was still standing, namely Shanks himself. 

“Marco is dead.” The only ones seemingly surprised by this was Doflamingo and Caesar, who both took it with wildly different kinds of emotion. While Doflamingo showed a childish glee at the game finally getting started, Caesar gasped, what little colour he had draining from his face in an instant. Zoro and Smoker both showed apparent indifference, as if they’d expected this, but one would be a fool not to notice the way their eyes sharpened. “-We found his body by the lava pit, just out of sight for both cameras.”

“We?” Smoker asked. 

Shanks nodded. “I suspected something might have happened to him and went to fetch someone to find him with. As I trusted Buggy, I got him to follow along, with Usopp hanging with us as extra security. When we found his body, Teach was cradling it.” All eyes possibly able to be suspicious at this moment turned to Teach, whose expression was that of poorly-kept sorrow. 

“Yeah, I was with ‘im! I found his body, and,” a sob clawed through his throat, “and I had ‘ta mourn him for a second! Is that so weird?!” Teach recounted, face twisting into a glowering grimace. 

Shanks didn’t take this with anything but mild curiosity. “Why would you mourn a man you barely knew?”

“Barely knew? ZEHAHAH! He was my brother! Perhaps not by blood, but by HEART!” 

“And when you found him, he was already dead?”

Teach glanced away, a shadow passing through his eyes. “Yeah, dead he was. Dead as dust.”

That was that. 

Smoker leaned forwards, resting his chin on his folded hands. “-In other words, the biggest suspect would be Teach.” Teach seemed to take this with no little ire, but Smoker continued before he could argue. “Him, and…” he turned a calm eye to Shanks, “-you.”

“And why do you think I did it?” Shanks asked, wise enough not to take Smoker’s suspicion as anything personal. 

Smoker shrugged. “Let’s say you killed him. Nobody else was in the Shuttle, you evaded the cameras and found him, killed him and left him there. You return to the shuttle, wait for a bit, go find a few crewmates to go ‘find the Chief’ with, and then you’re automatically absolved of all guilt. With witnesses, and two of them, to boot, there would be little reason for anyone to suspect you.”

He made a good point. 

A murmur passed through the collected members before Shanks raised his hand, bringing the rest to silence. “-Of course, a perfectly valid theory.” He let his gaze fall on Teach, his eyes still red and haunted. “-Then again, when we found the body, it was already cold. If I wished to absolve myself of all guilt, shouldn’t I have made sure to find it while it was still warm, to ensure it was clear I hadn’t done it myself?”

Smoker nodded silently. “Suppose so. Forgive my suspicions, it’s second nature.” His eyes narrowed. “I got a good nose for odd people.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Caesar raised his hand. Shanks nodded at him, giving the word to him. “I, uh, so there isn’t any concrete evidence? Or anything? No footprints, no scribbling in blood, just a bunch of hunches?” 

Doflamigo grinned. “Is there anything better?”

Caesar’s eyes went wide and outraged. “Yeah! Evidence, damn it! If we don’t have any proper empirical data, how can we possibly go about yapping that you think the guy in red seems suspicious for finding the damn body?!” At that, Caesar stood up, hands planted on the table in a show of confidence, despite his brows being deeply furrowed. “Red, no, Shanks. I say we just skip this whole damn thing.”

“Y-, yeah!” Usopp squawked. “Let’s not kill someone for-, for finding a body or mourning their brother, it just-,”

Zoro placed a hand on Usopp’s shoulder. “Don’t be so naïve, Usopp. If you can’t make tough calls…” his eyes grew sad, “I don’t think I can trust you in the least.”

“Hey, hey!” Buggy called out, standing up to grab everyone’s attention. “Cool it, you flashy idiots! Before we go making wild assumptions, let’s just take a look at who’s safe and isn’t.” Buggy turned to Usopp and flashed a reassuring smile. “Usopp is safe. Until Shanks picked us up, we were together ever since Marco held the first meeting. Is there anybody else who can say something similar?”

Doflamingo raised his hand. “I and hornhead here have been in the Laboratory since the very start.” A disappointed frown quickly marred his countenance. “Shame we couldn’t see the fireworks.”

Shanks nodded, satisfied with knowing who were undisputedly safe and who weren’t. “Who saw Marco last?” 

Caesar, Doflamingo, Smoker and Zoro all gave each other a look. In the end, Smoker was the one to speak. “Purple ‘n Pink called me over to the Laboratory to fix a faulty vent. While we were arguing, Marco and Zoro entered. Zoro went to fix some wires in the stalls while I left to fix the lower decontamination room. Marco came with Zoro but left without him.”

Caesar suddenly seemed thoughtful. “Wait, I didn’t see you leave, Zoro?” Although it was more of a statement than anything, it was really a question. 

Zoro paused for a moment. “...Are you suspecting me?” he growled, eyes turning dark. 

“N-, no, I just-,”

“Zoro,” Shanks affixed the green-haired man with a glare, “answer the question.”

Zoro shrugged in a huff. “I left through the decontamination rooms. I even met Smoker on the way out, in Admin.”

Smoker nodded, affirming that he’d seen Zoro as well. 

Doflamingo leaned in closer to the table, an amused glance thrown Teach’s way. “You’re being rather quiet, brother dear. Cat got your tongue?” A toothy grin settled on his face. “Or should I say bird~?”

“DON’T YA DARE SPEAK OF ‘IM!!” Teach practically threw himself at the skinnier man, face flushed in angry red hues. “YA DON’T KNOW NUTHIN’!”

Shanks and Smoker both stepped in between them, Smoker grabbing Teach’s wrists while Shanks prepared to assist him. Teach was a big man, easily the tallest in there, as broad as he was tall, most of his weight being muscle. Still, Smoker stopped him. A less attentive man than Shanks might have thought that this meant Smoker was simply stronger than Teach, but not so. If Teach had wanted to, he could easily have plowed through both Smoker and Shanks, and yet, he was stopped, merely because he wanted to be. 

“Not another step,” Smoker rumbled in a low, guttural voice. 

Teach stopped, glanced between Smoker and the rest of the people assembled, and proceeded to break down into a pile of sobs on the floor. 

Shanks stepped away from Teach and looked out at the people assembled. Nobody was without suspicion, be it towards their crewmates or directed towards themselves. “-We need to vote.”

“-Vote?” Usopp asked, brows squashed together. 

Shanks nodded. “Everybody will vote on the person they deem the most suspicious, or you will choose to skip. The option with the most votes gets-,”

“Ah, what does this do?” Usopp wondered aloud as he pressed a red button. Blip. “...What did I just do?...”

A little tiny wave of panic washed up on the shores of Shank’s heart. “I-, um, I think you might have voted for someone? But, but don’t tell us who. Right, so, now that you all-”

Blip. Blip. ...Blip.

Alright. Since everybody had already gotten to voting, hopefully doing so with more tact than Usopp did, Shanks also voted. Suspecting Teach would be the easy option. They found him with the body, he’s been acting almost too emotional ever since… Still, Shanks just couldn’t find it in him to suspect him. Neither could he suspect himself, of course. Smoker and Zoro saw each other in Admin, Doflamingo and Caesar were with each other, Kizaru was in the CCTV room…

In the end, Shanks chose to skip the vote. Hopefully, a few others would do so as well. A few more blips ring out, and then, all the votes were counted. 

Now, they would be tallied. The projector at the end of the Meeting room turned on, showing a list of their names and the people who voted for who.

The little wave of panic in Shanks’ heart rose to a tidal wave as three votes against him were counted. 

The only other person with that many votes was Teach. Two people skipped, and one person voted for Zoro of all damn people. 

Doflamingo, Teach and Usopp voted for Shanks.

Caesar, Buggy and Zoro voted for Teach.

Shanks and Kizaru skipped voting.

Smoker voted for Zoro.

“-Oi!” Zoro called out.

Smoker shrugged. “Could’ve been one clever ruse, what with following and leaving him.”

“Calm down, calm down!” Shanks said, mostly just to himself. Looking at these results…Although he should have been extremely unsettled knowing three people had voted for him, he knew Usopp had only done so by mistake. The thing is, if Usopp hadn’t voted for him… 

Teach might have been killed. 

It was a strange way of seeing it, but it calmed Shanks quite a lot. 

“So, uh, what happens now?...” Usopp asked timidly. 

“Noooooow,” Kizaru said slowly, rising from his chair. “Now I return to my dutieeeess.” He waited a moment before leaving, the cogs in his head turning slowly. “Haha, duutiess… like doodyyyyyy~.”

Nobody laughed at his joke, but his sentiment was right. “Return to completing your tasks,” Shanks said, translating Kizaru-ese into human. 

People glanced at each other, and the next second, they were gone. Usopp went with Buggy, Caesar went with Doflamingo, and the last four remaining were the people with lonesome duties. Teach left without speaking a single word to anybody. Zoro turned to Shanks. “I don’t trust you, but I’ve got business in the Shuttle.”

Shanks nodded, smiled warily, and left the office, Zoro trailing alongside him. It was strange. So much had happened, and yet the sky was the very same muddy black colour. 

The Shuttle wasn’t far away, and by this point, just the sight of it made Shanks feel a whole lot better. He didn’t have much left to do, so as long as he wasn’t disturbed for a while, he’d be fine. Before he actually got to work, he took a seat in one of the many landing chairs fastened to the wall, watching as Zoro fixed up the wiring. After a few minutes, Zoro was done with his work and left to go work elsewhere.

But before Shanks could get to work, he heard something odd. Some odd sound out there that rung out above the crackling electricity and howling winds and whirring reactors. 

A human sort of sound. “-Not already!” 

Shanks instantly cast aside all other work and ran out of the shuttle. He’d be a dead man before those damn killers could get their hand on someone else! Zoro only left a minute ago, so they must be after him! 

Panting, Shanks finally came to a stop, standing right in front of the entrance to Electrical. The camera above the door was flashing red. Shanks smiled and gave it a hesitant wave. But this isn’t where the sound came from. A little further down. Shanks reluctantly headed south, the crackle of electricity, snow hitting exposed wires, grew louder with each step he took, until it completely drowned out the sound of his boots hitting snow. 

The sound was like the growling crackle of the fence, but louder, as if someone had thrown a bucket of water on it. 

Soon, Shanks found the reason for the sound. 

A little snowman, adorable in composition, had been tipped over, causing the electric fence to crackle and pop with noise, far above what it would usually sound like. 

Shanks let out a deep sigh. Jesus Christ. That had been quite the thing to see. 

...That is, until he noticed the footsteps he was standing in. There was a bootprint in the snowman. Someone had been here. Only recently. They tipped over the snowman. Caused this buzz of noise. Caused an alarming sound. Gave someone something to investigate. Something to come check out. 

Shanks’ heart was engulfed and drowned in icy cold panic, and the next moment, his neck was snapped 180 degrees. 

There was an odd look in his killer’s eyes.


	3. Black, Marshall D. Teach

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Blacky you made a lot of bad choices actually you only made bad choices but still rip buddy ywy
> 
> One less suspect tho! Lel!
> 
> Also I'm quick in writing this cuz I love writing it 
> 
> And I now realize I maybe should have saved this for Halloween cuz it's kinda spooky like the Thing!??!? I'm kind of an idiot tho idk

Someone had been tipping over his snowmen.

Who’d even do that? Just go out into the snow to destroy his little boys? Probably one of those three bloodthirsty bastards who wanted to vote him off. He didn’t do it, damn it! And why the hell would he?? Killing one’s brother… Not even Teach was that depraved.

Not as depraved as whoever was up and destroying his precious snowmen. Damn it. 

He didn’t actually have to fix them back up or anything, his job was really just to make sure no earthquakes destroyed everything, but was there really anything to be lost with rebuilding them? Of course not! If anything, it gave him something to do and a cute little distraction from the facts of the matter. 

And that’s how Teach found himself by the lava pit. That’s where he went first. Letting Marco lie around in the snow… it would’ve been perverse. 

Only he could possibly be allowed to send his brother into his final resting place. 

Once he’d done that, he rebuilt the closest snowman, right by one of the many weather nodes, and continued his trek. He swivelled around the entrance of the Laboratory, gave a thoughtless wave to Kizaru, and continued past the Storage building, past the…

No, he didn’t walk past the Dropship. He took a turn, and entered.

Teach wasn’t sure about how he felt about Shanks. Everything considered, he’d probably saved his life. If it hadn’t been for him, those blindsighted bastards would’ve jumped at him like a bunch of sharks smelling blood. In that frame of mind, Teach wouldn’t even have been able to defend himself. Then again, he wasn’t exactly open to trusting anyone. Smoker had been absolutely right. 

That’s why Teach voted for Shanks in the first place. In hindsight, he should really have been more optimistic. 

Grumbling, Teach finally entered the shuttle, bringing in some snow. There was no one in the main room, but that was alright. Shanks should be in the cockpit, an area you had to use your ID-card to get into. Unzipping one of his many pockets, Teach removed his ID-card and swiped it. A green light blinked and the door opened, allowing Teach entry.

It was empty as well. 

The only thing so much as hinting that Shanks had been here at all was a yellow sticky note, containing scribbled notes about where Shanks had left off. 

But no Shanks. 

It was… concerning, in the least. Maybe Teach had been right to vote for Shanks? Or had something else happened to him?...

Teach left the Shuttle and decided not to think into it. 

He had a mission to complete, namely to reconstruct his snowmen. He’d already finished up most of them, and there was only a single one left. Passing by the entrance to Electrical, Teach gave the blinking camera a little wave and continued down, following along the cracking fence. Was it his imagination, or did it seem a bit… louder than usual?

No, that can’t be possible. That would be-,

S-, stupid…

At least, he’d found Shanks. Slumped against the fence. Head twisted around too far for the neck to go. Collapsed in a bunch of snow that used to be his snowman. Twitching coldly as bouts of electricity bit into his body.

Teach stopped in his tracks. Once his panic settled and his heart rate fell from its peak, he turned around, glancing behind him. Where he was, the cameras couldn’t see him. He couldn’t hear anybody. If he just left…

No, wait. Shanks must have come from the Shuttle, meaning Kizaru saw him. Teach had also been seen. 

Teach looked down at the body, head twisted around to face away from him. 

Unless he did something, he was fucked. He’d be voted out for a murder he didn’t commit, tossed into the same lava pit he’d thrown his brother into. The only way he could avoid this fate was to change the story. 

That is… if Shanks’ body wasn’t outside the electrical fence. 

What if… it was inside?...

Teach gritted his teeth. It was his only option. He bent down, his large body eclipsing Shanks’, and took a hold of it. He was light, but not too much so. Teach knew he was strong enough to do this, but it still felt… wrong. His only stroke of luck here was the fact that the killer hadn’t stabbed Shanks or something, meaning that there was no blood-soaked snow to fear. Not like where he’d found his brother. 

Teach hated how loose the body felt. There was a certain heat to it, as if his final breath had been drawn mere moments ago, still lingering in his lopsided helmet. 

Marco had been so cold. Too cold, really. Like he was frozen, through and through. 

Teach tossed Shanks’ body over the fence, grunting slightly. The red-clad corpse collapsed onto one of the four reactors, causing it to roar with static crackles. The limbs thrashed and heaved as thousands of volts crashed through it, dead muscle tensing up coldly. 

Teach turned away, unable to bear watching it. Then, he headed for the southern entrance to the West Wing. He waved to the camera, and tried to show a smile. It felt off on his face.

“What I’m telling you is that we should’ve invested in some sort of chemical oxidization, not some stupid tree!”

“Hey, it isn’t a stupid tree, it’s a marvel of botanic engineering!” Usopp argued. “Furthermore, it is 100% more effective than-, GACK!!”

At this point, Usopp noticed Teach, who stood in the doorway to O2 like a large, lumbering bear. “Uh, hi,” Teach mumbled, taking another step into the room. Usopp jerked at the greeting, clearly unhappy to see him. Buggy, on the other hand, didn’t seem to react as intensely, although he did squint rather suspiciously. 

“What brings you here, Teach?” Buggy asked, balancing a canister in his hand. 

Teach crossed the room in three even strides. “Just… walkin’ around. People not seein’ me last time got ‘em suspicious.” He wasn’t lying per se, simply… twisting the truth a bit. “‘Sides, can’t trust nobody.” He let his eyes narrow. “‘Specially not ones who stick up fer each other.”

“If-, if that’s all you came to say, you can just go,” Usopp said, glancing away to evade Teach’s venomous glance. Even still, Teach did leave. He only stopped by to give them an impression, and he needed nothing more. The tunnel leading to Electrical crunched softly beneath his boots. He felt seen, surveyed, observed. The walls had ears, but he couldn’t see them. 

When he emerged into Electrical, the crunching didn’t stop even though he had left the tunnel. 

He stared back, visions of ghasts clad in red with necks twisted too far back haunting the corridor, limbs twisting around and snapping back into place without rhyme or reason.

Shaking his head, Teach tried to calm his breathing. He-, he’d only done it to survive! They wouldn’t have found anything even if they searched it, this was just as well! Needless slaughter was worse than not knowing who did it! Still, he could still hear that crunching sound. Like someone stalking the hall, or bones and teeth crunching, or, or…

“Ohhhhh, hi Teeeaaach!” Kizaru greeted happily upon noticing Teach, bringing another fistfull of popcorn to his face to crunch down on them. Upon noticing Teach staring at his bag of popcorn, he stretched it out towards the larger man. “Want someee? Zoro went and made it for meeeeee, very nice guyyyy!”

Teach felt flustered. “N-, no!” An embarrassed scowl settled on his face. “The hell are you so happy about? People are dead!”

Kizaru paused for a moment, eyes widening. “But only the Chief has died yeeeeeet?”

Teach’s jaw snapped shut. “Well, err, yeah, but, um… it’s aliens, ‘right? In a way, people ‘ave already died when they got replaced by the imitators, yeah?” Teach argued, trying to make broad gestures while speaking to ensure that the point came across. As shameful as it was, he’d once taken a course in rethorics, and apparently body language was really important, even though it was altogether kinda stupid. The bigger the fist, the better the argument!

Kizaru seemed oddly thoughtful, even though Teach was pretty sure his head was empty. That, or filled with sweet-smelling smoke. A minute or so later, Kizaru beamed a lop-sided open smile. “You’re riiiiight! Why, that’s the most clever thing anybody’s ever said to meeeee~!”

Well, that was easy. “Uh, yeah. Just wanted ‘ta check in on ya.” Teach turned an eye to the cameras, currently showing the entrance to the Laboratory. “I, uh. Seen anybody suspicious?”

Kizaru looked up at the roof, scratching his chin. “Nooooo, Buggy and Usopp have kept in heeeere, Doflamingo and Caesar have stayed in the Laboratory, so the only people about are you, Zoro and Shaaaaanks.” He took a peek back at the cameras, furrowing his brows. “...Though I haven’t seen Shanks in a whileeee…”

“He, uh, isn’t in the Shuttle?”

“Hm? Nah, nahhhh, he left there a while agooooo. And then you came byyyy. Haven’t seen him, have youuu?”

Teach hastily shook his head. “N-, no! I haven’t!”

“That’s fineeee, I trust youuuuu~”

“You shouldn’t.” Teach swivelled his head around, suddenly coming face to face with Zoro. Quiet as a panther. Teach swallowed hard, trying to ignore the stabbing glare Zoro was giving him. “If anything, you should suspect him above any others.”

“Hey!” Teach said, a weak attempt to defend himself. 

Meanwhile, Kizaru glanced between the monitor and Zoro, finally giving an embarrassed little smile as he scratched his neck. “Aaahh, Zoroooo, I didn’t see you cominggg. Didn’t you have something to do in the Laboratoryyyy?”

Zoro nodded. “I did, but something’s up with one of the reactors.” He cast a glance at Teach, filled with unkempt hostility. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about it, would you?” Teach quickly shook his head. “Then, you won’t mind coming with me to check it out either, would you?”

“...No. I wouldn’t.”

“I’ll keep waaaatch~.” 

They walked through the hallway in silence. It was obvious Zoro didn’t trust him, just going by the stale way he walked and the tension in his jaw. Even more so by his quick, squinted glances, as if he was keeping an eye on him while at the same time keeping an eye out for any unusual movements. Teach couldn’t say he liked being suspected, but it beat being executed by a long shot. 

The door to the outside part of Electrical was shut. Zoro stared at it for a moment, mumbled something about how it wasn’t supposed to be closed, fiddled with his ID-card for a moment before finally getting it open. It opened with a hydraulic pissh, and for a second, Teach couldn’t see anything in that darkness. 

Sure, the crackle of electricity did illuminate the enclosed area a bit, but hardly enough for them to notice it at once.

No, what Teach noticed at first was the shower of sparks flying like a waterfall of stars from one of the reactors, making everything around it shine and light up. It was almost beautiful, if Teach hadn’t seen what was causing it. 

As it seems, his limbs stopped thrashing about after a while. Smoke billowed from his charred body, emitting one of the most unnerving smells Teach had ever smelled. 

Like freshly cooked meat. And nothing else. 

Teach could hear Zoro’s toolbox clattering to the floor. “...Holy shit.”

Was there any better description to this scene?

Teach felt like puking, but he couldn’t bring himself to. 

Zoro took a shaky step forward, turned to Teach, and spoke. “Go get everyone else. We’ve gotta get him down.” Although the words he spoke were authoritative and strong, his voice was not. It was shaky, unsure. The situation was getting to him, much like it had gotten to Teach. 

Teach nodded, and ran off. He’d never been much for running, but now, he had no choice. 

He didn’t even take the time to fear an ambush. 

Ten minutes later and all members of the expedition stood gathered in Electrical, watching as Zoro briefly switched off the reactors. Smoke still clung to Shanks’ body like his unwilling soul attempting to stave off his own death, but the skyfall of embers ceased falling from him. After that was done, Zoro, Smoker and Teach all worked together to bring his body down to the ground. Apparently, there wasn’t too much actual damage to the actual reactor, but that didn’t make it any better.

Nobody spoke a word. They all collected around his body, an unannounced silent minute ringing out. 

After that silence ended, Doflamingo crouched down, taking a closer look at the body. He removed the helmet and unzipped the suit. It was Shanks alright. But the fact of the matter was… “-His neck is broken.” Teach could feel his heartbeat quickening as Doflamingo examined the body, glanced at the fence, and looked outside it. “He wasn’t killed here. Only brought here to distract us.”

“B-, by whom?...” Usopp asked the question on everyone’s mind. 

Doflamingo shrugged. “Maybe someone who wanted to leave us questioning.” He let his sunglassed eyes fall on the people present, a grin spreading across his face. “-Or, someone who didn’t want to give us any questions to ask.”

Before Doflamingo could push the button on the side of Shanks’ helmet, Smoker stopped him. “Shanks had the right idea last time. Let’s look for any sort of empirical evidence before we jump to assumptions.”

“Hey, that was MY idea!” Caesar said, stomping his foot into the ground. Nobody paid him any heed though. 

Teach reluctantly went along with the search, trailing after Zoro and Smoker as they exited Electrical and moved over to the other side of the fence. Thankfully, it seemed, his own footprints had already been covered by the snow. Just as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Zoro simply had to point out something else to throw him into a panicked fit. 

“That pile of snow… wasn’t that your snowman, Teach?” Zoro asked, pointing at the pile of snow right next to where Teach could all-too-vividly recall the body being. 

“N-, no! Or, well, uh, I guess so, maybe?” he glanced at the snow, “maybe the wind knocked it over? Y-, yeah, tons of my other snowmen were knocked over, so I had ta go around fixing them, a real bother, yanno?”

Zoro nodded, but Smoker hardly seemed convinced. Still, he said nothing. 

As they could find nothing else in the snow, they soon returned to Electrical, finding everyone else gathered as well. “What’s the situation?” Smoker asked.

“Everyone’s ready,” Doflamingo answered, not waiting for any follow-up before he pressed the button thrice in that certain way, calling for a meeting. “Ah, I checked the body, too. There’s nothing of interest, so you can just toss him in the lava.” For some damn reason, Teach was chosen for this duty, having to carry the charred corpse on his back as they returned to the Office, everyone keeping an eye on each other. 

While everyone gathered in the Office, Teach walked right on by, through the hall and finally emerged in front of the lava pit. He turned to look at Shanks, whispered for forgiveness, and dropped him into the lava. 

When he came into the Office, everyone had already taken their places, two seats sadly empty. Teach sat down, and decided to keep mostly quiet if he could. 

After a beat, Smoker stood up, clearly meaning to act as chairman for the time being. “Alright,” he turned to Kizaru, “what have you seen?”

Kizaru scratched his chin. “Weeeeeell, last time I saw Shanks, he was heading souuuth. He passed by the camera to Electrical and gave me a waaave~.” To punctuate his point, Kizaru gave a little wave, much like he had last time, seemingly unbothered by any of this. Suddenly, his wrinkled eye fell on Teach. “Aaah, but Teach did pass by later, though he didn’t see anythingggg.”

Seven suspicious eyes fell on Teach. “H-, hey! He said it ‘imself, I didn’t see ‘nuthing!” Somehow, he could tell nobody believed him. Shit. Shittt. To think everything would go wrong so soon-,

“Then again, we can’t know if Teach passed by Electrical before or after Shanks was killed,” Usopp said, flinching a bit when all eyes turned to him. “W-, well, I’d think it might be good to know the order of events, right? Shanks might have gone into Communications or something before he was k-, killed!”

“Why would he do that though?” Caesar asked, leaning his head in his hand. 

Usopp was taken aback. “I-, um, I dunno? Why would he leave the Shuttle at all? That doesn’t make any sense either!”

Smoker nodded. “That’s true. Shanks, although rather lax, hardly seemed like the careless type.” Smoker’s eye fell on Kizaru, busy staring into nothing. “...Unlike some.”

Buggy squinted. “What if he was pursued?... So he ran there??”

“Noooooo, he stopped and waaaaved. He wouldn’t do that if he was all spooked, would heeee~?” Kizaru added. 

Zoro’s eyes sharpened. “If he wasn’t being pursued by an imposter… perhaps he was lured by one?”

“But I didn’t see anyone going that way thouuuugh?” Kizaru said, poking his chin. “Aahhh, then again, he could’ve used one of those hoooles?”

“A hole?” Smoker asked.

Kizaru nodded deeply. “Ohhh, yes. They’re eeverywheeere, part of some tunnel system. There’s one right outside the fence, toooo.”

Well, that was… dangerous. “Yer tellin’ me those bastards can pop up straight ‘outta anywhere?...” Teach knitted his brows. Maybe he’d underestimated them. “That’s… unsettlin’.”

“-In other words,” Smoker interjected, “it was possible to lure Shanks into the central area without being noticed by the cameras and then throw him over the fence, entirely unnoticed?” Kizaru nodded. “That’s one way of solving that mystery. It still doesn’t tell us how he was lured out there or by who.”

Zoro seemed thoughtful. “There hadn’t been anything special in the central area. Nothing out of place, nothing odd, nothing-,” a flash of realization passed through Zoro’s eyes and he suddenly turned to a rather surprised Teach. “-No, there was one odd thing. You said the wind pushed over your snowmen.”

“-Yeah, and I worked on ‘em for a good while, too!” Teach affirmed. Damn straight he was mad! Sure, he’d fixed all of them, but-

“All of the ones in the central area seemed fixed.” Zoro’s eyes sharpened. “...Apart from the one we found crushed outside the fence.”

Teach choked on nothing. “I-,”

“Hold on.” Smoker raised his hand. “Kizaru, would you please detail what cameras Teach passed by?”

Kizaru seemed somewhat surprised at being addressed again, but complied. “Oooooh, well, first he went by the door outside the entrance to Electrical, where Shanks passed before, and then a few minutes later he came inside through the southern doooor.” Kizaru turned to buggy and Usopp. “You saw him, riiiight~?”

Usopp appeared conflicted, but ended up giving a shaky nod anyways. “Well, yeah, we did see him, but… Still!”

Kizaru nodded. “I trust Teach.” 

“Then, since he passed by the fence, which he must have, there is no reason why he wouldn’t have rebuilt his snowman. Is there?” Smoker asked rhetorically. Teach squirmed in his chair. “I guess that’s the explanation, then. You lured out Shanks, most likely by perhaps tipping the snowman over by yourself, making it look like something you’d never do yourself, killed Shanks, tossed his body over the fence, and here we are.”

Smoker met Usopp’s eyes. “Considering that the lot of you noticed him, I’d say he went in there to establish an alibi of sorts.”

“Th-, that’s…” Teach barely knew what to say. Should he tell the truth? Is this the part where he accused someone else entirely? Were there even any arguments to be said apart from the obvious? “I didn’t do it!”

Kizaru stood up. “Okaaaaay, let’s take it easy heeeere.” Smoker seemed ready to argue, but Kizaru seemed genuinely serious. “Teach isn’t the only suspect. I don’t know where Smoker waaaas, not to speak about Zoroooo. For all you guys know, I could be lying about seeing Teach pass on byyyyy.”

“B-, but!” Usopp meekly argued. 

“But, we can’t reach conclusions just yeeeet. We don’t know much about anythinggggg.”

That is, unless Teach opened up and told the truth. If he did, maybe they could narrow the results a bit. Figure out who did it and who didn’t. “I-, I just didn’t notice the snowman as I passed by!” Teach chose not to do this. “I mean, it was just a heap ‘a snow on the ground, how was I s’posed ta see it?!”

Panic clawed at his insides with razor-sharp claws. 

Doflamingo drummed his fingers against the table. “To think you’d kill the man who protected you so closely.” He smiled. “Endearing! Now, let’s not think too hard about the why’s and how’s, it’s clear as day who did it! Letting this adorable little madman run about a few more hours seems like a perfectly charming idea, but as I value my life, I’d rather we just cut to the chase and get voting.”

Smoker nodded solemnly. “Kizaru, as right as you are, we can’t afford to assume innocence without the proper evidence to back it up. The situation is as clear as day. Let’s get voting.”

Teach gulped. He could feel his own sweat making his black suit stick to his skin. He felt trapped in his own skin. Damn it, damn it, damn it all to hell! His finger hovered over the various buttons, but in the end, he could only choose to skip. All he knew was that he wasn’t it. In his predicament, he didn’t have the time or mentality to put his suspicions on anyone. 

Blip. Blip blip. Blip. 

Everyone finally voted. If Teach was lucky, they would maybe skip on account of the lack of evidence. Sure, he’d been pretty witnessed, but-,

Five votes against Teach.

Five. 

All the rest, Teach, Kizaru and Usopp had tried to skip.

But in the face of such overwhelming numbers, it was a mere drop in the sea. 

Teach’s heart sank. “N-, no, I…”

Seven pairs of eyes turned to him. “I-, I’m no killer! I ain’t killed nobody!”

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Teach practically threw himself to his feet, his chair clattering and falling over behind him as he watched the rest of the assorted members rising. He took a step back. Considered running. But it wouldn’t help, would it? They’d already made up their minds. If the imposters didn’t get to him, they would. 

“S-, stay back! Ya blasted murderin’ bastards!”

They pretty much backed him through the hallway, out of the doorway, and over towards the pit of lava. 

Two bodies already rested on the bottom of it, swallowed by the fires of Hell. Teach found himself standing on the metal walkboard. A plank. The heat of the lava was overpowering. Fiery spirits of Hell gnawing at his bones. He felt so, so hot inside his suit. Burning hot. Soon, he’d surely feel even hotter.

White-hot tears streamed down his eyes. “P-, please, I didn’t-, I didn’t do nuthing, I just-,”

The truth crawled its way up his throat like an acid-spitting parasite. “I found his body, I did! But he was already cold as the snow around ‘im! Neck snapped all the way ‘round!”

There was a pause in his pursuers. “I knew ya wouldn’t believe me! You’d all say I killed ‘im coz he was clever enough ta catch me! I knew you’d suspect me again, and I couldn’t take that! I-, I don’t want ta die! Call me a coward, but I don’t want ta die!”

He squinted his eyes shut, fists balling at his sides. “I… I want to live…!”

But he didn’t. A few buttons pressed, a few blips, and the metal board escaped from under his feet. He plunged down into the molten death below, tears evaporating on impact, bones burning and teeth popping, his last thought was of his brother. He hoped they’d be together in Heaven, but Teach doubted he’d been pious enough to be allowed in there.

He died so quickly and so thoroughly that not even bones remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Think you know who it is? Say it in the comments! Use it as an excuse to say something!!


	4. Purple, Caesar Clown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -So, yeah! Caesar is a personal favourite of mine, I really feel like he needs more screentime in general, and I sort of wish I could've done him more justice than in here. It's kind of hard to accurately portray these characters, what with having removed all their physical and societal power. But, still! Enjoy!
> 
> Keep guessing, it entertains me to no end!

Caesar knew it was him from the start. It was obvious, really. Terrible acting aside, Caesar couldn’t honestly believe such an idiot believed them foolish enough to simply let him slip by. 

The only thing that made Caesar feel any sort of remorse for Teach’s death was the very last few things he’d said. Not the stuff about wanting to live or anything, no, he thought about that part where he covered up his discovery of the body. Everything he said, no, confessed had pretty much been proven. He was the only one strong enough to toss a stiff like that, he had good motivation for doing so…

All evidence pointed to this being the case.

But nothing proved that he actually killed Shanks. That was all just speculation.

Oh well. Teach was still an unpleasant bastard, so the only real reason Caesar might regret his death was that it lowered their numbers. The fewer people out and about, the fewer the witnesses. Not that he trusted anyone, anyways.

Oh, except for Doffy. That man right there was a man of quality, alright! While everyone else ran around with their pathetic little meagre intellects, Doffy sat with his legs crossed, grinning at them with the amusement only someone of ridiculously superior intellect could deserve. The kind of intellect Caesar himself possessed, in his own non-humble opinion. That was also why they got along so well. 

Until now. “I don’t see why this should be such a big deal! He was obviously some manner of suspicious, who cares if he didn’t actually kill him?”

Doffy shook his head, folded fingers covering his mouth. He wasn’t smiling. “Whether he was suspicious or not is entirely uninteresting. What’s the fun in killing a mere human?”

Caesar wrinkled his nose, absently pouring the contents of a beaker into another. “It isn’t supposed to be fun, you know.”

“Oh, well,” a feral grin crossed Doffy’s face, “don’t tell me you’ve never imagined what they might look like on the inside.” Caesar’s hand stalled to a stop in front of a little canister of aluminium powder. “Don’t be ashamed of it! Imagine those insides, crawling with unknown substances and peculiar cell formations... Perhaps they are not carbon-based at all, instead being of the elusive silicon-based sort? Oh, the possibilities!”

Caesar clicked his tongue. “You’d cut up a man if his heart happened to be in the wrong place.” Still, he couldn’t help but agree. Cutting up an alien like that…

A shiver ran down his spine. 

Shaking his head, Caesar returned to his experiments. 

“I don’t trust Zoro.”

Caesar turned to look at Doffy. “-Why not?”

The blonde man shrugged. “He’s got a lot of freedom. If he’d like, he could come and go wherever and whenever, and we couldn’t be able to so much as object. Wires to connect.” He paused for a moment, thoughtful. “Then again, trusting anybody at this moment might be the most foolish thing a man can do.”

Caesar startled. “Y-, yeah, of course! Shirororo, imagine believing anyone in this place could be trusted! Truly foolish, I say!”

“Indeed. Not even I am exempt from doubt, despite my own-,”

Psssh. Someone was using the Disinfection room. 

Giving Doffy a little glance, Caesar turned around to see whoever would come out. Doffy, who had so far been at the little desk in the far end of the small Medbay, stood up and walked up to where Caesar stood. They waited a few moments, staring at the very same closed door. 

Footsteps rapped against the tiled floor. And then, it opened.

White suit and white hair. “Disinfection working properly,” Smoker noted, stepping out of the tiled room. His eyes met those of his observers. “What are you two lookin’ at?”

“N-, nothing! Just… you didn’t happen to see someone else while coming here?” Caesar asked. Really, it was unimportant, but knowing where everybody was kind of calmed him down. It was Kizaru’s duty and all, but how could he possibly trust that slow man? In that sense, he trusted Smoker a bit more, but only a little bit. 

Smoker’s eyes narrowed. “I didn’t see anybody, no. I and Zoro are the only ones about at the moment.” He took a step closer to them. “Not that we’re the only suspicious ones around here.”

One could hear a pin drop. 

“Hey.” Somehow, Doffy’s voice carried enough authoritative intent to keep Caesar from even attempting to utter a word. “Let’s not go about hurling allegations like sledgehammers in glass houses. Isn’t that right, Smoker?” He didn’t even hesitate to return Smoker’s glare.

Smoker glanced away. “Tch. Fine.” He stepped past them, through the Laboratory and towards the exit. There, he stopped, and looked back at them over his shoulder. “But don’t think you’re automatically absolved of all guilt because you stick together.”

With that said, he left, leaving the two arguably most intelligent men on the expedition alone. They turned to each other.

A brief bout of doubt flashed through their eyes as they regarded who might be their future killer.

Time passed oddly calmly. Not much actually happened. The first three deaths had been a blur, each dying right after the next, but now… Now, there was a moment of respite, where nobody died and nobody wondered if another might be plotting their demise. Caesar took this calm the same way a man might understand an aggressively silent woman, namely with great fear and panic. 

Knowing who was alive and dead calmed him more than not. At this very moment, everyone but he and Doffy could be dead and stiff without them knowing, and there was no way for them to-,

Or… there was. In the Office. “Um, Doffy?”

“...Doffy?” the man questioned, obviously unprepared for any use of the nickname. 

“Oh, uh, n-, no! Doflamingo! Doctor Doflamingo!” Caesar said, throwing his arms in erratic patterns to try to explain his point as plausible as possible. Doffy didn’t seem impressed. “I-, um. I’mverysorrypleasedon’teatmyface.”

“Fufufufufu… Fuuffuufufuu!” Doffy laughed, throwing back his head. “Amusing! Do go on, sheep’s head, do go on calling me that… that little nickname of yours. It is… quite imaginative.”

Caesar almost wanted to object. “Oh, okay, um. Doffy, could you come with me to the Office? I’d like to check the vitals of all members collected.”

Doffy stared at him blankly before breaking out into a smile. “-Why, how clever! It slipped my mind entirely!” He quickly hopped to his feet, striding towards the door leading outside with little fear. “To think I hadn’t even considered doing so…”

“H-, hold on!” Caesar put a hand on Doffy’s shoulder. “Let’s-, let’s go through the Specimen room! It’s safer that way, and Smoker did say he fixed it up. Might as well, no?”

Doffy regarded him for a moment before nodding. “Another clever insight. You’re just full of them, aren’t you?”

“Heh, well, I am quite intelligent~” Caesar happily boasted, scratching his neck while a goofy grin took hold of his face.

All the way through the padded hallways and tiled rooms, they met no one. Not a single soul lingered in those halls, and Caesar knew why. The one person who had business there, the only one interested in what was kept here, was Teach. It had been his duty to sort samples and whatnot, and lacking him, this entire room and the Disinfection needed to pass through it was the Notre Dame without the Hunchback.

The Office wasn’t quite so empty. Two pairs of eyes met them as they stepped into Administration. The green-haired man decided to speak first. 

“We saw you coming,” Roronoa said, his only explanation being a pointed index at the green holographic in front of him.

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on everyone,” Smoker added, arms spread wide as he leaned over the table showing where everyone was. Or, if Caesar remembered correctly, it didn’t actually show where they were per se, but only where there were people and how many there. As far as Caesar could see, There were four in Admin, two in O2 and one in Security. “What brings you here?”

Caesar easily stepped passed them, entirely uninterested in whatever they had to say. “None of your business, repairmen!”

Before Caesar had left entirely, he heard Doffy explain with glee how they were about to take a peek into the pulses of all members gathered. It didn’t make much sense to Caesar. Why the hell should they have to explain anything to lowly repairmen? Furthermore, even worse, how come their well-read voices had the same influence as-, as Usopp’s?? That boy couldn’t spot a danger if it so kissed him on the nose!

“Come on, Doffy, let’s go,” Caesar growled. 

“Coming!” Doffy replied, giving an oddly-placed cackle as well. 

The repairmen, still inside Admin, continued talking about something else entirely, namely about how they had to choose whether or not to assume Teach was truly the imposter, as either assumptions held different weight and implications going forwards. Although Caesar hardly thought it was their place to consider such topics, he let them be. They had important things to do, after all!

He and Doffy soon found themselves in the western part of the Office, where one could swipe their card or check vitals. They were there for the latter.

Nothing unusual. All pulses were regular, along with their numbers. three people were still dead, no more, no less.

...Though, having less people dead would be a bit more worrying than having more people dead.

“Oh, well. Nothing to see he-,”

Everything turned red as a horn blared, a number popping up in the corner of Caesar’s helmet counting down from one minute to… something. 

His heart almost stopped. “Wh-, what the hell-,”

“It’s the Seismic Stabilizers!” Smoker called out with the kind of alarm only a person assured of their demise could possibly muster. “Run to the damn shuttle!!”

“I’m not taking any order from some-,”

Caesar could say no more before Doffy grabbed the collar of Caesar’s suit and dragged him outside, towards the Shuttle. D-, Doffy, what are you-”

“Don’t say one more fucking word,” Doffy ground out, putting a stop to any rebellious needs within Caesar. It didn’t take long to get to the Shuttle, but Doffy didn’t head there. He went for the side, towards the entrance of the Laboratory. He didn’t enter though, instead dragging Caesar over to the large structure keeping earthquakes from destroying the entire expedition. “Fuck, this was Teach’s profession.”

Thankfully, the task itself wasn’t too hard, simply press your hand against a screen, and wait for someone else to do the same thing on the other structure. 

In the corner of his helmet, the number hit 30.

Red lights continued flashing, the siren continued blaring. 20 seconds. 

“D-, Doffy, should I-,”

“No.” 

15 seconds. The lights flashed. “Doffy, someone has to-,”

“Stay. Right. Here.”

10.

Sirens blaring. 

5.

“Doffy!”

4.

“No.”

3.

“What the hell is-,”

2.

Doffy ground his teeth.

And…

And nothing. 

A little blue light on the screen flashed, signifying that everything was alright. 

They hadn’t died. They lived. 

“Shi-, shirororororo…” Caesar laughed meekly, trying desperately not to think about the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes. 

“Well, back to work, Cae-,” and the next moment, Caesar threw his arms around Doffy.

“We-, we live! We survived, Doffy!”

Doffy stammered for a moment, too surprised to react. And then, a tender little smile found its way onto his face, unlike any smile he’d smiled until now, but a smile nonetheless. “Yeah, we did.”

“You two done fooling around?” Smoker asked, arms crossed. 

“Geeeeee Smokeeer, no need to be so meeeaaaaan!” Kizaru commented, poking Smoker’s head, perhaps some form of odd punishment. It seemed surprisingly effective, considering the way a vein throbbed on Smoker’s forehead. 

“Cut that out!” Smoker growled, slapping away the older man’s hand.

“Ooooohh~ scary~.” With his piece said and done, Kizaru floated off towards the West Wing, uninterested in whatever happened next. 

Zoro seemed more interested. “The cowardly pair aren’t here?” 

“Usopp and Buggy?” Doffy asked rhetorically. “No, not in the least. They should still be in O2.” Caesar nodded affirmingly, fully attesting to what Doffy said. Zoro was right in wondering where they might be. Even if Caesar hadn’t been dragged outside by Doffy, he would easily have gotten panicked enough by the blaring sirens to run outside anyways. “You don’t think…?”

Zoro stared at them, eyes sharp. “If someone did this to distract us, something might very well have happened to one of them.”

That was all the group needed. 

All of them ran into Electrical, passing by the security office and continuing down into O2.

“M-, maybe we should’ve helped out?...” 

“Hey, we’ve got things to do! And the sirens stopped, too, so they probably figured it out.”

“Yeah, I guess-, GARCK” Usopp flew from where he’d been standing, dropping to the ground as all four people ran inside O2, completely unannounced. Caesar panted, not used to this kind of exercise, even though they had only been running for, oh, a minute or so, tops. “S-, STOP DOING THAT, YOU’LL GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK!!”

At least both Buggy and Usopp were alright. Caesar breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Everything alright? You seem… frayed. Like, in the nerves,” Buggy said, cocking an eyebrow. 

Caesar frowned angrily. “No, we’re not okay! Why the hell didn’t you-,”

The lights went out. 

Darkness fell upon the room like a descending bird of prey, placing all six crewmates in a cocoon of nothingness. A few panicked gasps rang out along with a whimper whose owner could only be Usopp. It was so black, so dark. Caesar could see nothing, not even an inch in front of him. Everything was simply black. 

Black, and dark, and gone. The air felt full. Full of breaths and voices and panic. Tangible, suffocating panic. His breathing quickened. He could feel it. How his diaphragm moved and spasmed. Uncertain, unclear. There were so many people in that room. And yet, Caesar felt alone. Alone and vulnerable. 

He gasped, stumbled back, and hit someone. Someone behind him. They grabbed a hold of his shoulder. Was it to keep him steady? Make sure he didn’t fall over? Or-?...

A row of sharp hungry teeth sank into his neck, twisting through the thick rubbery fabric, piercing the skin and rending the flesh and cracking and crunching and pulverizing bone, his windpipe wasn’t even crushed, simply severed, alongside the rest of his neck, but not all of it, no, a single part of it, a sliver, kept his head attacked, his dead, uncertain and blind head.

He gave a blood-filled sputter and collapsed to the floor. 

His killer shuffled away from his lifeless, empty, gazing body.


	5. Green, Roronoa Zoro

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeet rip Zoro hope none of you liked him much

"Nobody move," Zoro barked.

He’d heard something. Something heavy and dull had hit the floor, and damn everything if he wasn’t keeping everyone calm and collected. If someone had been killed… Even if someone had in fact been murdered mere moments ago, in the midst of a fucking crowd, panicking would only muddle what little clues that had.

What they needed now was not to run around like headless chickens, it was to get the lights on. As the Electrician, this was his duty. “I’ll go fix the lights, nobody move a single step.”

Nobody answered, but the silence was enough for Zoro to know his words had gone through. The thump had come from right in front of him, a little to the right, so all he could do was hope that nothing too bad had happened. That could wait for later, though. At this moment, his focus was more on retracing the steps they took and returning to Electrical. 

The door to the outside was closed again. At this damn time. Zoro fished out his ID-card and swiped it. The door gave a pssh and opened, allowing Zoro exit into the fenced outside, slightly brighter than the inside due to the flashing lightning above the reactors.

There was someone there, standing by the electrical box. Who could possibly be out and about? Could it be the killer? Or one of them?

“Ahhhhh, Zoroooooo! It’s good you came, I have no idea how these-,” Kizaru stopped himself, eyes falling on some undefined point beneath Zoro’s face. His hands stalled completely in shock. 

“What the hell is it?” Zoro growled, maybe a little too irritated for his own good, especially since Kizaru hadn’t done anything.

“I, uh,” Kizaru stuttered, pointing a trembling index at Zoro’s chest. 

In turn, Zoro glanced down.

And was promptly met with a vast expanse of still-wet blood. Parts of it had even dripped down the entirety of his suit, marring his boots and dripping into the snow below. There wasn’t any question of it any longer. Someone in there had been killed in a most flashy manner, and Zoro was absolutely covered in his blood.

He had to physically stop himself from desperately wiping at his suit. This was evidence. As much as he hated this, he couldn’t remove it without removing something that might allow them to catch the killer.

“...Kizaru, before we go about accusing, we need to get the lights back on,” Zoro bit out, fearlessly stepping closer to him. His boots left bloody prints in the snow behind him, but he tried to ignore it as best as he could. “Is that clear?”

“Huh? Uh, ummmm… Yeaaahhh?” Kizaru answered, stepping aside as Zoro got to work. Luckily, his hands were unsullied, meaning that he didn’t get any unidentified blood on the delicate wiring. “Um, Zorooooo?”

Zoro leaned his head slightly, keeping his eyes on his work. Someone had really had fun here. “Yeah?”

“What happened in theeeeere? Is everyone alriiiiight?” Kizaru asked, and going by the sound of it, he was genuinely worried. 

Zoro shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The lights went out, I heard a thud, so I went out here and now…” And now he knew for a fact that someone wasn’t alright. Not that he could do anything about it at this moment. All he could do was connect a few severed wires, turn on the disconnected servers, and…

Light streamed into the outside from the inside, proving that the lights had gone on. 

And in the next moment, a scream rang out, followed by gasps and movement. “-Fuck,” Zoro muttered. Can’t rest for a second. While he ran back to O2, he could tell Kizaru was following him, which was probably a pretty good thing. He didn’t trust him much, and not from how he spoke or anything, just… How could Zoro possibly know if Kizaru had been in Electrical to fix the wires or to tamper with them?

Zoro filed that little possible suspicion into another file. It could wait. Right now they had to-,

They arrived in O2.

Someone had died alright. Judging by the purple suit and the pale complexion… it must have been Caesar. Even when Zoro and Kizaru returned, no eyes turned to them. They were fixated on a certain man dressed in pink. His fists balled were his side, a dark tremble coursing through his body. 

Zoro stared sharp-eyed as Doflamingo leaned down, hand reaching over to Caesar’s head to lift it ever-so-slightly.

It was a grisly sight, really. The head was only attached by a thin sliver of skin and flesh, stale blood dripping lazily from it. Eyes and mouth wide open. 

Yet, Zoro stared not at Caesar, but at Doflamingo. His face had darkened significantly, the mere look in his shaded eyes bringing the rest of the group to silence. 

“Who did this?” Doflamingo growled in a low, guttural voice, his bestial eye darting about the room, glaring deep, stabbing daggers into every single member of the crew, Zoro included. “Who killed him?”

Nobody spoke a word. Nobody dared so much as question Doflamingo. Not that anybody could answer him either.

But the silence could only go on for so long. “Calm the hell down,” Smoker said. “All you’re doing here is making things worse than they already are.”

“How can it possibly be worse?!” Doflamingo snapped, baring his teeth like a rabid animal. “I don’t trust you. You know why? You’re way too calm. People die, and you take over as leader like everything’s humpty-dory. Like the situation isn’t getting to you in the least, and that disgusts me. You act as-, as if nobody’s going to die again! As if we aren’t going to turn on each other and point fingers and continue this twisted little game!”

Smoker glanced away. A shadow flitted over his face. “I’m keeping it together.” He glanced down at Doflamingo where he sat in a pool of blood, pink stained with red, shaking and foaming at the mouth. “Someone has to.”

Doflamingo seethed, teeth grinding together noisily.

But things had already gone too far. “Nobody move,” Zoro repeated, finally getting some attention on himself. “We need to handle this calmly. And that begins with everyone taking it easy and looking around.” Zoro glanced down at the body. A wound like that wouldn’t leave anyone nearby unbloodied.

The eyes on him slowly drifted down. People noticed the blood on him, and Zoro could do nothing but sigh, shoulders dropping. Though, on closer inspection, he was hardly alone in being completely bloody. He was almost about to disregard Doflamingo as a suspect since he must have gotten this bloody while inspecting Caesar’s body, but that wasn’t entirely so. No, he had a few splotches on his back that couldn’t have come from going down on his knees.

The only other people apart from Zoro who were bloodied were Usopp and Buggy, albeit by far less than Zoro himself. 

In other words, the only person there who wasn’t covered in blood was… Smoker. 

Oh, and Kizaru, but he was too far away from the body to be a suspect to begin with. Then again, not suspecting him at all would be more foolish than suspecting himself. 

“Z-, Zoro, you’re all covered in blood!” Usopp said, somehow not in an accusatory way, more so worryingly. “Wait, you too, Buggy!” And somewhere along the way, he must have glanced down at himself. “And-, and ME!!” Usopp almost collapsed right then and there, swaying and noodle-legged. 

Zoro nodded. “Except for Kizaru and Smoker, we were all close enough to the murder to be sprayed. Logically speaking, one of us did it. Who, I cannot say.”

“I, uh, um, can I clean it off?...” Usopp gestured to the blood on his chest, “p-, please?...”

Zoro shook his head. “If you tamper with evidence, I’ll assume you’re the killer.”

Usopp gulped but didn’t say anything else. 

“He was bit,” Doflamingo muttered, leaned over Caesar’s body. “Something bit into his neck, gouging out most of it.” He scoffed. “No surprise we’re all covered in blood. Almost more surprising one wouldn’t be.”

“Heeeeeey, I didn’t do anything!” Kizaru said in a meek defence. 

Doflamingo clicked his tongue. “I wasn’t talking about you. Not that you aren’t suspicious in your own right. Don’t think I didn’t see that tunnel right next to your little hidey-hole. Bet in comes in handy for sneaking in and out.”

Kizaru crossed his arms, a little pout appearing on his face. “If you waaaant, you can see when I’m on the cams or nooooot. If I’m not there, the light isn’t blinkinnnnng.”

“Hah! As if you couldn’t have a ‘friend’ come over and take over for a moment! Your arguments are ridiculous, murderer.”

Tapping his foot, Kizaru turned away, actually a bit peeved over being suspected.

Usopp took a step closer to Doflamingo. “Hey-, hey, now, take it easy, there, we’ll figure this out! No need for any accusations or nothings!”

Doflamingo growled, clearly not above turning on the poor kid in turn. Oh, well. This had gone on far enough. Standing around here was almost disrespectful to the body, and even more so to the group as a whole. They had to figure this out, and not by shouting petty insults at each other. 

Reaching down low, Zoro pressed the button on the side of Caesar’s broken helmet, and stood back up once the red light in his own helmet started flashing. 

Doflamingo, who had been too focused on thinking up something suspicious about Usopp now jerked around, a ferocious glare sent at Zoro. 

“Come on, let’s go.” With that said, Zoro stood up. People started filing out of the room without much complaint, but Doflamingo lingered around the body, shooting hesitating glances between the leaving crewmembers and the body. Zoro stopped, turned around, and established eye-contact with Doflamingo. “...Just take his body.”

He didn’t reply. Not verbally, at least. He stood up, clutched the body close to his chest, and carried it outside while Zoro followed.

A few minutes later, they were all collected in the Office, waiting for Doflamingo to return. Soon enough, even he returned, chest and arms smeared with blood. Zoro already knew that they wouldn’t see a smile on his face anytime soon. And with that, everyone sat in their seats, generally more spread out now than before.

And it wasn’t just their dwindling numbers either. No, even though Doflamingo should have been sitting right next to Buggy, he’d moved his chair a bit to take up the space Caesar left.

There were only six of them left. Barely half had died, and yet they felt so few. “...Let’s review the facts,” Zoro said, taking lead for no other reason than because it felt right. “To begin with, neither Kizaru nor Smoker are to be exempt from this ruling.” Kizaru seemed a bit surprised by this. “-The reason I say this is because of several little… reasons. Suspicions.”

“Let me guess, nothing concrete?” Buggy asked, eyeing the splotch of blood by his own collar and chest with no little apprehension. 

Zoro shook his head. “Kizaru is suspicious on account of what he could do, what his role implies. There is no proof that he tampered with the lights, but if he did, he could write off his tampering as trying to fix it. Furthermore, with his role as Security Guard, he’d easily be able to know where everyone was, such as where Marco was or when Shanks left the Shuttle.” He paused for a moment, a thought striking him. “If I remember the floor plans correctly, the tunnel behind the CCTV room should lead to a hole beside the fence outside of Electrical.”

Usopp mumbled something, but once he received a number of looks, he repeated it louder. “Ah, erm, well, that isn’t quite proof, is it?”

“No, but it’s a damn good reason to suspect him.”

Beside Zoro, Smoker nodded as well. 

“What about Smoker?” Buggy squinted at the taller man, “what’s up with him?” As it seems, the red-nosed clown was only asking it as a sort of formality. Everyone should be doubted, even those who really ought to be exempt. Smoker himself did not object to this suggestion, at least not verbally.

“The only thing suspicious about Smoker is how unsuspicious he is. There isn’t a spot of blood on him, despite being one of the three people closest to the body. Though, we should remember that this is no real reason to suspect him either. This isn’t the kind of murder that you can come out of without any blood on you.” At this point, Zoro noticed how Usopp was staring at his chest, not at his eyes. “-Everything alright, Usopp?”

“Huh? Oh, um! Uh… I just, well, if we’re going by the ‘someone-who’s-bloody-did-it’, aren’t you, I dunno, the most suspicious one here?...”

A fair point. Looking at the people present, it’s obvious who got the most blood on them. Doflamingo got a small bit on his back, Buggy and Usopp both got loads on their chest and collars, and Zoro is almost completely covered from the chest and down, although his legs mostly got covered by the blood running down his legs. “I would be, if I was the imposter.”

Doflamingo shot a dark glare at Zoro. “He was bit in the neck, severing the large arteries. The one closest to the body would’ve gotten sprayed the most. The closer, the more intensely. The speed of it would cause a large amount of blood to run down the length of their body. Going by the blood patterns,” his eyes sharpened, “you would be the most suspect of us all.”

Zoro raised his hands in surrender. “I would be, if I was the imposter, which I’m not.”

“Hah, sure!” Doflamingo said with a cackle. “Just as your partner told you, no?”

Crossing his arms, Zoro felt a glower twist his face. This vengeful bastard would be the death of him. Literally, too! “You’re suspicious too, you know.”

Doflamingo cocked an eyebrow. “Oh, really now? And why is that?”

Luckily, Zoro actually had an answer there. “We can’t assume you’re acting faithfully. You could have bided your time this whole time, strengthening your alibi through Caesar until you disposed of him. Then, once the lights came on, you could go down to his side and smear the blood already on you by using his body as a paintbrush. If you left some sort of proof on the body, you could have also disposed of it just no-,”

“HOW DARE YOU!?!” Doflamingo roared, flying to his feet. “Implying that-, that I’d slay my fellow man! For what? For the sake of the kill?! You insignificant tapeworm, speaking as though you evade suspicion!”

Zoro scowled, readying himself for an argument before Buggy stood up, stopping any such turn. “Calm down, you flashy idiots! This is the time for-, for logical debate, not name-calling!” He sat back down, leaning back with his arms crossed. “Sheesh, going at each other’s throats like rabid animals.” He soon received the darkest of glares from a certain Doctor. “Oh, um, sorry. It was in poor taste.”

“Bet your fat, red nose it was.”

“WHAT WAS THAT YOU-,”

“B-, Buggy! Relax!”

Surprisingly, at Usopp’s gentle coaxing, Buggy visibly relaxed, though it was clear his anger seethed just beneath the surface.

“And him, then?” Doflamingo asked, gesturing to Buggy. “Tell me about why he would be suspicious.”

Zoro shrugged. Honestly, he hadn’t given it much thought. “It could’ve been the same situation as with you, but… Usopp is alive, and apart from the blood, there’s nothing incriminating about him.” Much like himself, that is.

“What about Usooooooopp?” Kizaru asked, breaking his silence after a long while. 

Zoro tilted his head. “-What about him?”

“What about him is suspiciouuuuuuus?” 

Furrowing his brows, Zoro had to give it some actual thought. Usopp was alright, wasn’t he? He was covered in blood, but going by the way he glanced at the blood on his own and Zoro’s suit, he obviously wasn’t very happy with it, unlike what some inhuman alien would be. Sure, he could just be a great actor, but Zoro could tell that this wasn’t just all faked. He knew his friend well enough to know that.

N-, not that he didn’t not trust him or anything! “He… he’s covered in blood, but that’s the only reason to suspect him.”

Kizaru seemed somewhat unsatisfied with the answer, but still nodded. 

Out of pretty much nowhere, Smoker raised his hand. “Final question before we get into the meat of the discussion… should we assume Teach was an imposter or not?”

An entirely necessary question. As they had been discussing earlier, whether or not Teach was an imposter was unconfirmed until they got the other one. If they killed the other imposter and the killings stopped they would know Teach was the one, but until then, they can’t know. “-We’ll assume he wasn’t the one, but still discuss the what-if’s of if he was an imposter, which he hopefully was.”

Smoker nodded, happy with the assessment. 

“To begin with, Zoro said, turning to Kizaru. “We’ll assume for the sake of argument that Kizaru was an imposter and that he caused the blackout.” Zoro ignored the upset “hey!” he got from the mentioned member. “If that is the case, who did the actual murder? The one who did it had to have been liable for having part in all other events, meaning that Buggy, Usopp and Doflamingo are off the table since they were in duos before this.”

A beat passed before Zoro realized what he said. 

“-Still, I didn't do it. If-, if we assume Kizaru wasn’t it, then it's possible that one of the two duos included both imposters, and since Caesar’s dead, that would mean that Buggy and Usopp are both imposters, in which case-,”

“But that isn’t possibleeeee? I was watching them the whooooole time,” Kizaru drawled out, his calm eyes containing an odd, sharp edge to them that Zoro hadn’t noticed before. He swallowed hard.

“Well, okay, it isn’t Buggy or Usopp. Then, if it was just one of them, like Buggy, for example, working together with one outside member, they could-,”

Doflamingo drew a sharp breath. “You really don’t want to accuse Usopp, do you?”

“Wh-, what?” Zoro turned to Doflamingo, face dark and flushed.

“Just a thing I’ve noticed. Buggy is one thing, but when it comes to Usopp… Oh, you’d rather accuse yourself.” Here his voice turned cool, icy cool, a frozen razorblade. “Why is that?”

Shit. There were so many eyes on him. Not many, not as many as those that had turned on Teach, but the emotion was the same. “If… if we assume that Kizaru and Smoker worked together-,”

“Or,” Smoker said, turning a half-lidded eye on Zoro, “how about we assume that you and Kizaru did it? Or you and Usopp. Even better, you alone. How would that pan out?”

Zoro stammered. “I-, it, stop that! I’ve done nothing wrong, damn it! I’m not the killer, stop looking at me like that!”

“Um, Zoro?...” a meek, faint voice Zoro knew all-too-well asked. He turned to Usopp. The younger man glanced between Zoro and his blood-stained chest. “Did-, what did you do to the real Zoro?...”

His eyes widened. He simply couldn’t believe what he was hearing. There was a lot he could believe, a lot of suspicions he could face, but from Usopp?... “You too?...”

“I damn well knew it,” Doflamingo spat. “I knew you’d be the one. I should’ve voted you off before you-, before this all happened.” He turned to Smoker, to Buggy, to Usopp, and to Kizaru. “Let’s vote. Don’t listen to that cold-blooded killer. He’ll muddy your mind with uncouth thoughts.”

Zoro couldn’t even reply. The voting mechanism came up. 

He stared at it as if he was drowning, a hundred feet below the pulsating surface, looking at his single thread of life. His lifeline. If he voted right…

He pressed skip. 

This had to work. It had to.

Otherwise, not only would they be voting off an innocent man, but they’d be doing it instead of a guilty one. 

The projector came on, and the results were shown. Zoro’s heart sank on the spot, his shoulders slumped and he stared at the ground with such vengeance that one might have thought it hurt him personally.

There were three votes for Zoro, one from Doflamingo, one from Buggy, and one from Usopp. 

Two decided to skip, namely Zoro and Kizaru.

Smoker, unlike last round, voted for Buggy. Considering that the only one who voted for Zoro last round was Smoker, this was a bit odd. It was obvious Buggy took this personally and wanted to lash out at him, but at the moment, nobody was light enough of heart to allow it.

Everyone stared at Zoro. 

He stood up, and walked towards the exit with large, confident strides, passing by the card-swiper and ID-reader. Behind him, the rest of the crewmembers meekly followed. He glanced at the machine that read the vitals of everyone aboard. Four dead. Grey lines among green, jagged peaks and valleys. Soon he’d be one of the flats.

He grit his teeth, and continued his dance with death. The pit of lava stretched out before him like a red carpet. Four souls lingered in there, the smell of sulfur and nitrate emanating from it. 

Zoro walked out onto the plank, and turned around. They were staring at him. Asking him to do what they couldn’t tell him to. 

He reached out his arms at his sides. A trembling smirk crowned his face.

“I will die facing the heavens!”

He took the plunge, falling backwards into death.

Facing that clear, empty sky.


	6. Yellow, Kizaru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awwww mann, honestly? Even though this was the shortest chapter, it might have been the hardest to write. I fuckin love Kizaru. He is such a darling, and I swear to Christ, someday I'll write a fic all about this old boy. Maybe him and Usopp together? They'd make a good pair, I just know it. 
> 
> Hum, I have been considering a one-shot where Usopp tried to set out on his lonesome with the Usopp pirates and happened to meet and "capture" a certain light admiral who found the whole situation absolutely adorable, only to then go berserk when a ship of real pirates stumbled upon the situation. I mean, just imagine Usopp tying up an admiral with rope, wondering what a lone marine guy is doing in East blue. It'd be hilarious.
> 
> Anyhooooooo, here's the chapter! After the next chapter, things will get, well... Tumultuous.

People returned to their positions rather quickly, Kizaru quicker than anybody else. 

He hadn’t actually known that the tunnel outside his room led to the outside, y’know? But now, ohohoho, now he had a short-cut! At least, he thought he did, until he tried to climb in there only to find it far too thin and narrow for anyone with a skeleton to enter. 

A shame, really. Being a little mole, climbing through the ground… What a dream! Kizaru’s heart went alight at the idea, but as it turns out, moles didn’t have bones, unlike Kizaru.

Or didn’t he?? Who knew! Kizaru sure didn’t. Had he ever seen a bone in his body? No. Never. If he poked a few places there was something hard beneath his skin, but that wasn’t proof. Until he saw his bones with his own two eyes, he had to assume he simply didn’t have any. That’s scepticism for you!

Kizaru snickered to himself and sat down in his comfortable chair, letting it swivel in circles for a few seconds before settling down fully.

It was a pretty odd design choice. What with only being able to see a single camera at once. Not that he could change any of that now. Maybe Zoro could have?

A frown found its way onto Kizaru’s face. Zoro really didn’t deserve that. A man shouldn't be killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And was it so wrong to suspect himself? It just didn’t make any sense. Kizaru trusted Zoro! He brought him popcorn! Would an evil murderer do that? Oh no they wouldn’t.

On that note, Kizaru honestly didn’t think Teach did it either. 

Sure, at first the large man had been acting quite suspicious. He pretty much stayed outside all the time, being in clear view of a lot of the cameras. Sometimes he’d go into an area Kizaru couldn’t see with the cameras, stay there for a while, and then leave. Kizaru had originally seen this as something rather interesting, but after that first meeting, he was given a view at what had actually happened.

In every area Teach had stayed at, there was an adorable little snowman that paradoxically melted Kizaru’s heart. They were so cute! Little cutie snowmen with little cutie heads!

No way a murderer could construct something like that!

And then after the first murder, someone was going around kicking them over, too? Horrible! How mean! Kizaru swore that he’d catch that snow-killer if it was the last thing he did! Sadly, since most of the snowmen were outside his vision, he couldn’t see any of it happen. All he saw was Teach going around fixing them up, which was very, very kind. 

And then that murder happened. 

Thinking about it made Kizaru a bit sad, but he did have work to do. So, he turned back to the cameras, and flipped through them a few times. Birdy entered the Laboratory through the normal entrance and not the disinfection area, Buggy and Usopp walked into the West Wing through the lower entrance, and Smoker stayed in the Office, probably to keep an eye on if anybody moved. 

And then… nothing much. At rare moments, Kizaru could catch a glimpse of Usopp and Buggy in O2, and even if the cameras didn’t have audio or anything, he could almost hear them chattering about everything and nothing. They got along so well! 

Kizaru smiled and flipped around a bit. Nothing else to be seen. 

Hum. Kizaru switched back to the camera showing the entrance to O2. Usopp and Buggy were sitting on the floor in the main room, Usopp pointing to a small drawing of a leaf, making large motions. Buggy nodded, shrugged, crossed his arms and altogether seemed defiant. 

Usopp. 

He’s the one who asked Kizaru to check and see if something had happened in Electrical, since a lamp had gone out in the boiler room. 

He’d done so, and then the lights went out. All things considered, it was Kizaru’s fault that the lights went out, but… It was Usopp who asked him to do something. This caused Usopp to jump straight to the top of Kizaru’s suspect-list. He hated suspecting such a young man, but…

Could he honestly believe there was any bone in that nose of his? Not so. 

...Either that, or there had to be a bone in that nose, hence why he must have bones, hence why he must not be a mole. No, wait, an imposter.

This was all so confusing! Oh, well. Kizaru wasn’t the inductive sort, and he wasn’t about to start being it anytime soon. His little suspicions would stay in his head, where they belonged. Nobody could tell him his thoughts were coo-coo crazy if they didn’t know anything about them.

Kizaru flipped through the cameras a bit more. Usopp and Buggy were still in O2, Smoker was probably still in the office, and Birdy… was exiting the Laboratory! How interesting! Kizaru made a little note of it in his notebook. As shameful as it was to admit, Kizaru was the forgetful sort, so if someone didn’t pass by a bunch of times or wave at him, he forgot it within minutes. Hence his little notebook. Scribble scribble. A quick look at the time… 21:47. It’s gotten late.

Kizaru flipped through the cameras, waiting for Birdy to pop up elsewhere. For a while, he didn’t, but Kizaru did get a look at something else. 

There was an odd quirk to these cameras that only Kizaru knew about. They could see the inside, too. Not much of it, but enough to see a few happenings. He could see a little bit inside the Office, a fair bit of where they kept the drill, and…

The Boiler Room. Where Usopp and Buggy were.

This in itself wasn’t odd, they’d been in there aplenty, but… The people in there didn’t know they were being watched. And since they didn’t know that, it seemed like the perfect place to commit murder. And now that he had reason to suspect Usopp…

He flipped through the cameras as quickly as he could, noted that Birdy hadn’t popped up elsewhere, and went back to the lower camera in the West Wing. They were inside the boiler room alright. Buggy was twisting the knobs while Usopp watched. Menacingly.

Kizaru stared at them closely before giving another quick flip through the cameras. He had to remember to keep a watch on the other cameras, otherwise, he might miss something important. Such as a murder. 

He watched, he flicked, and he watched. Time seemed to go so slowly. Like a drunk snail. 

He watched them, flipped through the cameras, and-, and he saw the Birdy. Entering the upper entrance to the West Wing. Into Electrical. He scribbled the time and person and place as hastily as he could before returning to the Boiler Room. They were gone. Had he been found out? Had Usopp realized he’d been watching? Had it been done elsewhere? What was-,

“Kizaru?”

His head whipped around to face the intruder. Hadn’t even heard his steps. “Yeeeees Birdyyyyyy?”

A scowl twisted Birdy’s complexion. “Don’t call me that.”

“Call you whaaaaaat?”

“Whatever the hell you just called me,” Birdy growled. 

Well, okay. “If you say sooooo, Pinkyyyyy.”

Pinky was about to say something else when he stalled himself. “Fine. I’m leaving.” And he did. He spun on his heel, and left. Odd behaviour, but Pinky was an odd man, so it was okay. Kizaru scribbled over every time he’d written “Birdy” in his notebook and replaced it with “Pinky”. That’s probably better, right?

He turned back to the cameras and flipped around a bit. Pinky left through the upper door, Usopp and Buggy were nowhere to be seen…

He let his electronic eye linger on the Boiler Room. Maybe there was a body there. Maybe he just couldn’t see it. Hidden behind a pipe or something. Leaning in, he inspected it as closely as he could, taking in the details of it. Nothing seemed out of place. Nothing in the least.

There was a little sound behind him. Like the shuffling of a mole or something. 

He glanced back, but couldn’t see anything in that darkened hallway.

He turned back to the cameras. Usopp was there, and Buggy, too! Good, good, they were alright. Better alright then dead, heh.

There was a shuffle again, but louder. Steps. Rocks clicking against rocks. He glanced back. There was a shadow back there. Darker than the dark hallway.

“Hellooooo?” Kizaru called out. No reply. He blinked, removed his glasses, wiped them off, and once he put them back on, he found that there was nothing there. “Huhhh…”

Usopp was on the camera again. Kizaru tried to focus, but it was hard. Something was happening, but he didn’t know where, or what, or to whom. 

That is, until the blade was in his own throat. Blood splattered across the pristine shining screen, showering the room in dark red light. 

The last thing he heard was the pssh of a door opening, and someone saying: “Shit, I forgot why I even came here! Kizaru, do you-,”

And then, he was gone.


	7. Pink, Donquixote Doflamingo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ready to get your socks rocked clean off?

Someone scuttled into the tunnel. Someone wearing a lightly-coloured suit. Might have been yellow, might have been white, might have been orange, Doflamingo simply didn’t catch it. 

But he did catch someone in the act. Goddamn everything. 

Doflamingo threw himself towards the security room, if it was Kizaru he must have left the other imposter in there, and if it wasn’t Kizaru-,

His body laid slumped over his chair, arms flailed out at the side, singular drops of blood running down his arms like snakes, dripping onto the floor where a puddle had already formed. His head, neck severed almost completely by a clean slide, was arched so far back that had his throat not been gouged open, it would have had to have been broken. Empty eyes stared back at Doflamingo who stood transfixed and silent at the sight.

What blood didn’t pool at the floor had splattered all across the monitor, painting the world in red. 

The monitors. Doflamingo’s mind and raced at the thought. That man-, whoever it had been, had used the tunnels to escape. He had to be somewhere. He had to be on the cameras. The only one out and running right now should-, no, had to be the killer. 

Camera one, nothing. Camera two, nothing. Camera three-,

Someone popped out of the vent. And, finally, Doflamingo got a clear view of the colour of his suit.

After all this damn time. 

Orange.

Doflamingo cursed bitterly. Kizaru’s body steadily grew cold. Doflamingo hated to ignore it, but he had to. The man in orange, Usopp, ran inside the Office, and-,

Don’t tell me-,

A red light started flashing in the corner of Doflamingo’s helmet. The killer had called for a damn emergency meeting, most likely to accuse him of the murder. Damn it. Damn it all! He should have reported it the moment he saw it, but… At least, now he knew who did it. Usopp. The name felt off on his tongue. That wimpy little kid… Doflamingo should have recognized the signs of the liar the second he laid eyes on him. 

He was a proficient liar himself, after all. But Usopp was more than proficient. He was… inhumanly proficient. 

All he could do now was enter the Office and try to get Buggy and Smoker on his side. He had to. Otherwise, they were as good as dead.

Tonight, he picked up a body for the second time in his life, but before he fully exited, he noticed something. A little notebook, opened on a half-blank page, notes about this or that scribbled in a scratchy chicken-scrawl. Evidence. Doflamingo swiped it without a thought, placing it in his pocket. 

When he came into the office, Kizaru’s lukewarm body cradled in his arms, he was last to arrive. Buggy, Usopp and Smoker were all there, staring at the corpse he held with a wide range of emotion. 

Usopp pretended to almost pass out, Smoker’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, and Buggy gulped, eyes flicking between Doflamingo and the body without pause.

Somehow, Doflamingo really felt like walking into the Meeting-room and dumping the body onto the table to show his irritation, but Kizaru didn’t deserve that. Instead, he trailed through the hallway, still warm blood dripping from Kizaru’s body onto the floor, leaving a little trail. Doflamingo stared out over that red bubbling pool, haunted by the spirits of too many. He let Kizaru fall, and that was that.

He returned inside, and prepared himself for what was about to come. 

For a moment, he simply surveyed the Meeting room, taking in how absurdly simple it was. An old-school projector, an equally outdated water dispenser, stale coffee and wood-like doughnuts that nobody had even attempted to eat (god only knew when Marco had the time to make them, but by the looks of it all, Shanks probably helped him. They seemed to have gotten along), and a little tree in the corner. Doflamingo could only assume Usopp had planted it before he was made a victim. 

Doflamingo turned around and glared at the one man he knew for a fact did it. He let his eyes, his animosity, the honesty of his soul pour into him. “You,” he growled, leaning in further towards him. Usopp recoiled the closer Doflamingo got, eventually finding himself entirely leaned back in his chair, yet still having Doflamingo’s dark, scowling face mere inches from him. “You did it.”

Usopp’s eyes widened considerably, fear and incomprehension filling them with all the emotions of a fawn. Such a good actor. Such a fantastically good actor. “Wh-, wha-,”

Doflamingo bared his teeth, preparing to jab a finger into Usopp’s chest when suddenly Buggy stood between them. Every single facet of his face and body radiated hostility, a bear protecting their cub. Doflamingo had never seen anything fiercer than those eyes, and the air grew hot with the tension around them. “Don’t you fucking dare accuse him. Don’t you dare tell me he did anything.”

“Did anything?” Doflamingo leaned back out, face contorting into a grimace of disbelief and amusement. “He didn’t just do something, he killed someone!”

“I-, um, what-,,” Usopp stammered, apparently trying to collect his thoughts. Doflamingo wouldn’t let him.

“Oh, yes. Surprised, are you? I’m surprised inhuman beasts such as yourself hold that emotional capacity.” Doflamingo, the only man standing at the moment, took this time to stroll around the table, bloodied boots hitting the tacky, carpeted floor until he stood right behind Usopp. He placed both hands on his shoulders, keeping him sitting. “I did more than see you, too.” He grinned, assuredness and confidence radiating from his form. “I saw you jump into a tunnel. You must have thought I came to Kizaru’s shabby office for no reason. Not so.” He chuckled. “Although thinking you could evade me was a clever decision…” he grinned, “thinking you could evade the cameras was anything but.”

Colour drained from Usopp’s face. “H-, hey! I didn’t do anything like that! What are you-,”

“Usopp, don’t say anything,” Buggy said. “He’s throwing out baseless accusations since he knows he can’t win us over some other way.”

Hah! The gullible bastard! Doflamingo almost wanted to laugh at him for being so stupidly foolish. Sadly, laughing at the person he’s trying to convince certainly won’t do. “I’ll take it from the beginning then. Perhaps that will jog your memory, killer?” Seeing Usopp frown like that set Doflamingo’s heart alight. What startling malice. “I left the Laboratory, and sought out Kizaru. When I got there, he was very much alive and kicking, calling me… not-so fanciful names, but still-,”

“Why did you leave the Laboratory?” Smoker asked. He’d been quiet until now, perhaps trusting in Doflamingo’s assessment, but now…

Doflamingo froze. He couldn’t tell them why he left. He couldn’t tell them that he felt haunted, that the silence, previously so warmly filled by Caesar’s incessant chattering, was suffocating. A deep dark abyss in which he choked and drowned, cold silent water freezing his lungs. “I… had my reasons. It is entirely beside the point.”

Buggy glared at him. “And what exactly is the point, then? To accuse Usopp of a crime he couldn’t have done?” he spat out. 

Usopp himself didn’t say anything. He seemed almost too silent, too comfortable in saying nothing. His teeth were gritted, eyes dark. It was enough for Doflamingo to know he was on the right track, no matter what Buggy and Smoker thought. 

“I left him for a moment. When I returned, mere moments later, I saw someone in a light suit hop into the tunnel behind the security room, escaping before I could even find the body.” For some reason, at this moment, Usopp turned and stared at Smoker, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “It wasn’t him,” Doflamingo growled. “I looked at the cameras, that’s why I didn’t report the body immediately. On the cameras, I saw someone run out of a tunnel.” He let his sharp eyes fall down on Usopp, who cowered and squirmed. “And that someone was you.”

Buggy jumped to his feet, pointed his index at the taller man, practically frothing at the mouth. “Listen here, you flashy fool, that isn’t possible for two very damn good reasons! If he was an imposter, which he sure as shit isn’t, how the hell did he do all those other murders?? He was with me this entire time!”

Before Doflamingo could answer, Smoker did it for him. “If we assume Zoro was the killer, or even better, Teach, we can assume that there’s a difference here. Clearly, the one who killed Caesar wasn’t the same as the one who did in Shanks and the Chief. It would explain this sudden sloppiness.”

“But now how he was able to kill with me in the same damn room!?”

“Unless,” Smoker said, a sharp edge giving his words a certain accusatory tone. “You are an imposter, too.”

Buggy bristled. “Oh, really now? Really?? And all this without Kizaru so much as noticing one of us leave?!”

“The tunnels,” Doflamingo added. “There’s a tunnel in O2. Wouldn’t have to be a genius to figure that one out.”

Usopp made a few odd, choppy movements. “Well, um, okay, so it could be one of us, but… How do we know it isn’t, like, Smoker? Or-, or you! We can’t know what Kizaru saw before he-, before someone took him, r-, right?” A clever question for a murderer. Oh, well, he had been meaning to present it sometime. 

He placed the little notebook on the table. It was worn and yellow in colour, decorated with happy monkeys eating all sorts of fruits. For some reason, it really fitted Kizaru. “-This notebook should tell us a thing or two.” He didn’t even wait for anyone to ask anything before he flipped it open to the latest scribbled note. 

The first thing he noticed was a note that said: “Pinky left WW upper door”. For some reason, beside the “Pinky”, there was a scribbled-out word that seemed to say… Birdy. 

Doflamingo flipped back a few pages, and sure as shit, every single place where he did something, it said “Pinky” instead of his actual name, usually right next to a scribbled-out “Birdy”. That is… Unimportant! Let’s not think about it. Doflamingo went back to the latest few dates, starting out at the “Zoro was voted off :c” part. The first part that it documented was where everyone was; “Pinky” in the Laboratory, Buggy and Usopp in O2, Smoker in Office. 

There was a little question-mark next to Usopp’s name. Something Doflamingo simply couldn’t miss. Looking at the rest of this, Kizaru’s suspicions toward Usopp was a recurring theme. If Usopp happened to learn of this…

He sent the killer a dark glance. Usopp looked away.

After the first few notes, it recorded the time that Doflamingo left the Laboratory, but it never did record when he entered the West Wing. A quick look at what came between these two events ensured why this was. “Buggy and Usopp in Boiler Room, keeping eye out.” Apparently, at some point, the two had entered the Boiler Room, and since Kizaru was already suspicious of Usopp…

The next entry read that Doflamingo left the West Wing, and the very last entry, was “Usopp suspicious in-”, cut off by a splotch of still-wet blood. 

This… told him very little. But it told him enough.

“-It was Usopp. It had to have been.”

“Why?” Smoker asked, obviously not above suspecting anyone but himself. 

Doflamingo rightfully scoffed. “If we’ll do that little thing that you did the first time around, let’s assume Usopp did it, for the sake of it all. Knowing Kizaru suspected him, he killed him, but when attempting to use the tunnel to escape, I noticed him. He escaped through one of the other tunnels, and ran to the Office, all while I saw him. Then, he called for an emergency meeting, and here we all are. It’s an open-shut case!”

“W-, wait, hold on, I didn’t-, I didn’t call for an emergency meeting?”

Doflamingo’s jaw snapped shut. “-Don’t even try lying about it. I know you-,”

“When we arrived at the Office,” Buggy interrupted, “the meeting had already been called for. Both I and Usopp arrived after it had already been called for. Call me an imposter if you so want, but I was with Usopp the entire time since we voted off Zoro!”

Smoker raised his hand. “Doflamingo, this has gone on for too long.” Doflamingo, already at a loss for words, now froze in place. “I called for the emergency meeting.”

“Y-, you did?...” Doflamingo asked, his voice a trembling, uncertain vibrato. 

“Yes. Because while I was keeping an eye on where everyone was, you left the Laboratory. And then, you appeared in the Security Office. I didn’t find it odd. Not until Kizaru disappeared.” Doflamingo gulped. Something here was wrong. Something here was very, very wrong. “I checked vitals, and found him dead. So I called for a meeting.” His eyes were cold. “Because now we knew who the killer was.”

“You…” Doflamingo snarled. “How the hell didn’t you see him in Admin? How didn’t you see how Usopp-,”

“Because he didn’t leave O2, damn it!” Buggy exclaimed. “He was with me!”

Smoker chuckled. “Never thought you’d be bold enough to try something like this, though.”

He wasn’t bold. He wasn’t being bold to tell the truth! He wasn’t bold to dispose of Kizaru’s body in the proper way, to point his finger at the man he knew did it! Smoker must have seen it. He must have seen Usopp leave O2 to kill Kizaru! Or Buggy. Buggy must know as well. Why won’t they stand on his side? Why do they defend that fucking killer? Why-,

“I’ve heard enough,” Buggy said. “Let’s vote.”

Smoker nodded. The voting mechanism popped up, and in that moment, Doflamingo suddenly knew exactly how Zoro and Teach felt. That single moment of calm, frozen panic, body like dark, burning ice. Enveloped in thoughts and feelings he couldn’t possibly show on his face. Teach and Zoro had both had that expression on their faces. A deer in the headlights. Drowning panic. Burning panic.

Frozen panic. 

He knew he did it. He just knew it. 

He pressed the button to vote for Usopp.

Buggy and Smoker were quick to vote, but Usopp’s hand stalled. “I-, I can’t do it,” he said, eyes on the cusp of overflowing. “Was it you, Doflamingo? Did you kill them?”

“No,” Doflamingo said softly. 

A hand was placed on Usopp’s shoulder. “Usopp, we have to end it. We’ve gotta do it.”

Usopp swallowed his tears, shaking his head robotically, thoughtlessly. “I-, I don’t-,”

“Usopp.” Buggy grabbed the sides of Usopp’s face, turning it to look into his eyes. Eye-to-eye. “We don’t have a choice.” He glanced away. “Just-, just trust me, okay? Just this once.”

Usopp stopped in his tracks. Smiled a soft, trembling smile. And nodded. 

The votes were counted. 

Three against Doflamingo, one against Usopp.

...Shit.

They led him outside. Soon, he stood there, above that vast pool of hot death staring at the three people left. Usopp, Buggy, and Smoker. 

Who’d think that not reporting the body at once would be the death of him? He just had to check those cameras. Know who did it. He just had to check those blood-soaked cameras, view the world through a bloody lens, the snow all red and fleshy…

...Hm? 

No, wait. It was wrong. It was all wrong. 

If the blood had truly stained that monitor, if it had truly been Usopp…

Wouldn’t the blood have coloured his suit red?

Then-, then why had it been orange? Why had the blood not changed the colour? Why-,

Oh. 

Doflamingo turned to Smoker. 

Oh. So that was how it was.

He’d been stupid. A flashy fool, as Buggy so eloquently put it. Oh well. Now, it was time to join the one person he’d trusted on this whole damn mission. “Guess this is it. You were intelligent, perhaps a little bit more than me. I’ll see you on the other side, Usopp.”

And with that, he fell willingly. The seventh victim.

“Is-, is that it?...” Usopp asked timidly, a desperate, hopeful smile on his face. “Did we win?”

Smoker didn’t meet his gaze. “S-, Smoker?... What’s wrong, why won’t you-,”

Buggy glanced away. Teeth gritted, arms crossed.

“B-, Buggy?...”

And in that moment, Usopp realized that he was alone.

Well and truly alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hamstercheese7, the love of my life, I've been meaning to ask this since you wrote that comment so long ago. How the HELL did you know?? HOW??? It-, I would've understood it if you deduced it, but you guESSEd and got it right?? What are the odds? Seriously I wanna know
> 
> Anyhoo, uhhh, yeah! This is where shit breaks the fuck down!
> 
> If you'd like, I sort of recommend going back and rereading previous chapters, just to have that "aha" moment of understanding. But, yeah! The next chapters are gonna be odd!


	8. White, Smoker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be pretty short for reasons you'll soon discover öwö

This was it, then. 

Smoker had actually insisted that they just do a double-kill once he picked off that slow-talking fellow, but apparently the Red-nose wanted to do this in a… different way. “Let’s get the second last guy voted off,” he’d said. “Having only one guy left to kill would be much easier than two.” Smoker never should’a taken advice from that clown. He was the sneaky sort, not the… murdering kind. 

He’d done a good enough job on Sheep-horn, perhaps a bit too emotional, but it had certainly been a close one. If Green-hair hadn’t outed himself…

Oh well. That was over now. A single human left. 

Judging by how Long-nose’s human face paled, he must have understood his situation quite well. “I-, uh, um… P-, please…”

Smoker really didn't care for talking to his victim. “Be quiet and you won’t suffer.” As Smoker reached for a hidden pocket in his own flesh, he soon realized he’d left the knife in the monkey-man. Damn it, Flamingo had really taken him by surprise there. Left with no other choice, Smoker let parts of his human form dissolve. After all, keeping up this form was… draining. 

It was like holding your breath for a very long time, going beyond that moment where your chest hurt and your head started pounding. It felt natural, to simply release that breath, let his right arm open up into fleshy tendrils of teeth and claws and whatnot. If he were human in any way, this is the point where his white suit would get ripped apart, but not so, especially since the suit is also part of his body. In human terms, he was naked. But also not.

Bah, humans and their arbitrary terms. 

The Long-nose quivered, eyes widening at the sight of Smoker’s arm opening up like a blooming flower of teeth and flesh. Unlike Red-nose, Smoker wasn’t about to go around biting people. Well, he was about to bite the Long-nose, but using his arm. As confusing as human terms were, their own terms were hardly any better. 

“H-, hiiiii!” Long-nose whimpered, taking a step back from Smoker and the pool of lava. A rational move, according to Smoker himse-,

A hand was placed on his shoulder. Turning his head only slightly, he saw Red-nose, an odd look in his eye. “Smoker,” he said, voice distorted somewhat as his human form changed slightly. “Hold on a moment.”

“The hell do you want?” Smoker asked back, his own vocal cords deepening as he no longer cared to keep his human form entirely maintained. 

Red-nose glanced away, every facet of his human face showcasing doubt and confliction. “I just think-”

And then, Long-nose ran. He turned his back on the two killers, turned tail, and sprinted off into the darkness. Smoker cursed under his breath. He only had so much vision, he was only so fast, and right now, Long-nose had almost gotten too far. “Shit, Buggy, get to the cams, find him!”

Smoker couldn’t catch if Red-nose nodded or not, but he had to assume that he did. Left with no other choice, Smoker dove into a nearby tunnel, right beside a weather node and a forgotten snowman, letting the majority of his human form dissolve. Small, bony protrusions blossomed across his body, digging into the rocky tunnel, forcing his compressed body forwards at speeds far quicker than human running would allow. 

His first destination was also the closest one. The chances of Long-nose running in here were low, but even then, he popped out into the Laboratory. Right in the stalls. Going by the placement, it seems one of the toilets collapsed into the tunnel.

The tunnel he was using. 

...He’d chosen to ignore that long ago. A quick peek into the rest of the Laboratory ensured that the young boy hadn’t emerged here. 

He hopped back into the tunnel. This trip would take a bit longer, but not enough to be a detriment. 

Less than a minute later and he crawled out of the Tunnel inside the Office, the southern one through a little hallway of bookshelves. He couldn’t remember using this one. No, wait, he’d used it back then, to kill the Chief. It almost felt like a lifetime ago. It would all be over soon. 

Smoker quickly made his way through the Office, barely stopping to check anything before he hopped into the tunnel right in front of the Meeting room.

Although this hadn’t been the primary vent he’d used a mere hour ago to kill monkey-man, he’d used it in combination with another tunnel and Red-nose’s expert distraction to complete the kill. Flamingo had been an unexpected but somewhat welcome change in plans. To Smoker, it didn’t really matter if the final human was Flamingo or Long-nose. It shouldn’t matter to Red-nose either, but somehow, Smoker could tell things weren’t quite so simple. 

Either way, Smoker popped out of the tunnel beside Communications, took a quick look inside the mentioned cabin as well as Weapons and promptly returned to the tunnel. 

His final stop for this tunnel would be the Storage. He didn’t expect Long-nose to be in here, and he wasn’t. Just a bunch of useless human trinkets. Smoker quickly exited the room. He’d assume for the moment that Long-nose hadn’t chosen to hang about in the Specimen room, meaning that he just had to check the West Wing. 

Electrical was empty. Blood littered the floor in various places, most obviously in the Security Room, where blood still splattered the screen. Green-hair had left a rather impressive trail from O2 to the outside of Electrical. Smoker followed it into O2, but before he could open the door leading to (Red-nose really liked keeping all the doors closed for some damn reason), he noticed that he could hear something. 

“I-, I don’t want to die-,”

“Shh, keep it down, idiot! He’ll hear us!”

“I-, um, sorry.”

“Look. We can just-, I’ll get you out of this. You don’t deserve this, okay? You’re a good kid. I’ve done bad things, I don’t care if you hate me for it, but I don’t want you to die for it. I want you to live. Our species might never get along, but we two, you and me, we can get along. If only for tonight.”

“Buggy, that’s… you are Buggy, right? I can’t-, I just-,” There was a quick sniffle.

“Hey, hey, cool it! Don’t cry now, man!” A slap. “Keep it together! I’m going to need you to-,”

Smoker stepped through the door. “To do what, exactly?” The two scheming bastards jerked around, Long-nose growing paler yet, his eyes as white and terrified as a rabbit could be, while Red-nose obviously struggled to keep his human form in the best shape it could be. Making an effort to look normal in front of the human. Pah. “Buggy, why don’t you dispose of the final human?”

He didn’t move. Neither did Long-nose for that matter. 

Very well. If he wouldn’t, then Smoker had no choice but to do it himself. He bared his biological weapon of choice. 

Red-nose grit his teeth, grabbed Long-nose and ran for it. Is that how they’d do it? Very well. Smoker didn’t mind being the last man standing. If winning meant taking out his fellow imposter, so be it. With that vow in mind, Smoker pursued.

It was a rather short run, ending where it had started. Right by that pool of magma. 

Usopp stood huddled by it, Buggy situated right in front of him, clawed, alien arms stretched out to protect him. A pathetic display of solidarity between opposing species. He’d always been the emotional sort. He simply wasn’t suited for this sort of situation. Not to murder, and not to pretend, either.

Apparently, he couldn’t even pretend to like a human. He had to go and get personal about it. “If you do not step aside, I will assume you have chosen to betray me.”

“N-, no, I haven’t chosen to betray you! I just-, we can figure something out! We don’t have to kill all of them, do we?” Red-nose weakly defended.

Smoker let his human form dissolve fully. “So you have chosen death.” His voice was a bellow. A gravelly, inhuman sound that he couldn’t imagine the human could understand at all. His body, fleshy and restless with energy, heaving and moving and barely resembling anything human as he prepared to do away with a truly unwelcome surprise. 

Red-nose growled. It wasn’t a human sound, but it didn’t quite line up with anything Smoker could understand either. It was simply a sound. 

The right side of Red-nose’s body opened up, revealing jagged teeth and bloody bone. Long-nose whimpered, and in that short moment where Red-nosed glanced back, concerned and foolish, Smoker struck. A tendril, the tip of it crowned with a sharp tooth, shot out at Red-nose’s face, missing it by a mere inch when the face parted. Smoker pulled back his arm. 

It started. The battle was no longer between human and alien. Smoker knew this and had to adjust his strategy accordingly. Flesh no longer bled, instead twisting and changing to avoid his projectiles, malleable as clay. The moon stood high, their battle painted red with both the little wounds they took and the luminous magma they battled beside. Their prize, the one to be spared or slain by the winner stood aside, watching with trembling limbs and trembling gaze as two monsters fought.

Smoker hated to admit it, but it was a standstill. 

Smoker had the upper hand in strength and defence, but Red-nose was quicker. He easily evaded Smoker’s strong attacks, landing little ones that left Smoker with the tiniest of scratches. In turn, Smoker gave Red-nose a few wounds of his own, nothing big, nothing that could end this battle once and for all.

No, Smoker knew that if he wished to win, he would need to do something new. Something unexpected. Something… cunning.

He glanced at Long-nose, an idea flitting through his head. It was his only choice. 

Red-nose seemed too absorbed in the battle to even consider the possibility. Smoker’s eyes sharpened. He watched for a misstep, a stumble, a moment of respite where he couldn’t act. It didn’t come naturally. And so, Smoker chose to create it. 

He let Red-nose get a hit in. A row of sharp teeth sunk into his back, surprise painting Red-nose’s features. 

In this moment of surprise, Smoker struck. 

Long-nose hadn’t seen it coming, either. 

One moment he’d been standing in front of the lava, and the next…

He was missing an arm and a good part of his chest. Smoker grinned. A fatal wound. With this, Red-nose would be forced to submit himself, to agree to the death of the human, to-,

Something sharp punctured Smoker’s chest. He looked down, and found a bony spear lodged deep in his heart. Blood seeped from it. Was it human, or alien? Smoker couldn’t know. He coughed, red blood staining his white suit. Stumbled a bit. Passed by the stunned-silent Long-nose. 

And fell into the lava.

His last thoughts lingered on the irony of it all.


	9. Orange, Usopp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ywy

That body, that alien body that had lived for too long, it made such an odd sound when it died, Usopp thought. Like a whistling teakettle. Or the screams of a million mice. Trapped air-bubbles screeching for release. It was an odd sound. 

Usopp fell into the snow. It felt like falling into a world of pillows. Soft, white pillows that accepted him with open arms. He wished to sleep. 

His arm was gone. He wasn’t sure where it went, but he knew Smoker took it, perhaps to his fiery grave. It felt right. That man being dead. But it felt wrong, knowing what it had cost. Nobody was going to win like this. Not the bad guys and not the good guys either. His chest felt light and open and free. He’d been down under so deep before. Pressure building and pumping his lungs full with sludge and water and bad things he didn’t like. But he’d escaped all that. His chest was free now. Free and open and breathless.

A smile settled on Usopp’s bloody face. He watched happily as Buggy fell down in his knees and crawled over to where Usopp laid. He was so worried. Parts of his face seemed to be falling off. 

Such an odd man. He was nice. Back before things went wrong, Usopp hadn’t really trusted him. Who’d trust a man who looked weird, talked weird and knew weird things? It turns out, Usopp would. He’d trust such an odd man. Maybe it was a silly idea, sharing his little enjoyments with him, giving him little parts of his mind and soul and green fluffy leaves that he couldn’t appreciate. Or maybe he did appreciate him? Usopp appreciated what Buggy gave him, at least. And maybe that was enough. 

The features on Buggy’s face seemed to convulse and move in irregular, inhuman ways, expressing emotions beyond the human spectrum. Usopp giggled, and the movements stopped. “You look weird,” he said.

His face relaxed somewhat. In a very strange way, that face seemed to be both less Buggy and more Buggy. His mouth and eyes seemed more expressive, soul on full display, and yet, there was something hidden, restrained. Usopp quickly realized what it was. Smoker had done it, too. They’d done it almost completely when they fought. Buggy wasn’t human. This form wasn’t truly him. He must’ve been straining just to keep up the illusion that he was human in some form. 

“It’s okay,” Usopp cooed. “You can show me.” 

Buggy hesitated. His human shell stiffened. Trembled. 

And was shed. 

Usopp had always loved movie monsters. The kind with lots of teeth and horrible flesh and eyes here and there that didn’t many any sense on a Darwinian basis. Maybe he should have been scared. He felt like he should have been terrified, but his heart wouldn’t beat any faster. If anything, it seemed to slow down, growing fainter with every beat. Usopp smiled. That was okay, too. He didn’t want to be scared of Buggy. Because Buggy seemed sad. He seemed so sad, amidst those gaping mouths and hanging tongues and inhuman features. Amidst those terrible horrible things, there was a tangible sense of loss to him. 

“What’s wrong, Buggy?” Usopp asked, reaching up to touch Buggy’s face. His hand trembled. It was pale and odd and he wasn’t used to using this arm for anything, but he had to touch him. Had to feel what he truly felt like. “You look sad.”

A gurgle emerged from Buggy’s throat. He shook his head, and spoke again. “Sorry, I-, I’m sorry, I…”

In those many eyes of his, heavy fluids pooled. He swiped at his eyes with one of his many limbs, the tears dissolving parts of his flesh. He didn’t react to it. It was interesting, Usopp thought. It was a very interesting sight to see. Acidic tears. He’d save that for his next story. He never did finish telling Buggy about the land of Nevermore. 

“Don’t be sorry, I’ll finish the story some other time, okay?” Usopp said, but for some reason, Buggy didn’t seem too happy to hear it. “And then, when I do, I’ll tell it to you.”

Buggy nodded slowly. “Yeah, okay. You’ll do that?”

“Yeah,” Usopp said. He felt warm. The snow felt warm, too. And Buggy felt the warmest of all. Like a fireplace in a person. It was cosy. The snow was a bed and Buggy was there to wish him goodnight. The stars twinkled so pretty above them, singing little lullabies. “I’m going to sleep now.”

“...” Buggy paused for a moment. He slowly took Usopp’s body into his arms, and burrowed his head in the boy’s chest. “Yeah,” he said. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Buggy.”

Usopp slept there, in a bed made of snow and blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip my boy


	10. Blue, Buggy

It felt perverse, leaving his body there in the snow. 

Tradition would dictate he let the magma break him down, let his body and soul join the other unfortunate souls that died here, but he chose not to. Buggy let his body be where it lay. The cold enveloped it, snow blanketing his stiff limbs, a final embrace of death. 

Maybe in time, in a few months or years, he’d be discovered. He wouldn’t be a lone survivor, but he’d be someone. People he knew and loved would have a body to bury.

Buggy trudged through the snow. His limbs felt heavy. Heavy and wrong. Keeping up that human form had been hard, but somehow, he preferred it to this. He preferred hanging around in O2 with Usopp, trading stories and facts and information about this and that. 

There wasn’t anything else to it.

His mission was complete, and that was it.

He walked off into the darkness. 

Alone, and empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And... there it is. A story completed. 
> 
> Before I end this fully, I'd like to thank everyone who came with me along the way, guessing and deducing who the killers might be. Seeing you piece together the clues made it all feel worth it, and knowing that I gave you all a little twist here at the end delights me immensely. I'll be moving on to other ventures now, perhaps that Kizaru and Usopp fic I mention back in Kizaru's chapter, or perhaps that Buggy x Usopp fic I've got going on.
> 
> Either way, thank you for reading! 
> 
> And if you're reading this, dad, I hope you, most of all, enjoyed the story. You may not have known the characters like I did, but considering that we both enjoy these sorts of whodunnits, I'm sure you found a thing or two to enjoy. 
> 
> Cheerio!


End file.
